Preamble

The House met at Half-past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Political Demonstration, Wolfsburg

Mr. Bramall: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent the display of the black, white and red flag and the singing of the German National Hymn are permitted in the British zone of Germany; and whether any action is contemplated in connection with a meeting at Wolfsburg on 6th March, presided over by Herr Falk of the German Right Party, at which both these events took place.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Mayhew): There is no Military Government Law which prohibits the display of the black, white and red flag or the singing of the German National Hymn. No action is therefore being taken in connection with the meeting at Wolfsburg on 6th March of the German Right Party. The activities of the party are, however, being kept under careful observation.

Mr. Bramall: Will my hon. Friend see that a close watch is kept on these activities in Wolfsburg where the influence of this Nazi-minded party has produced a complete breakdown of democratic local government?

Mr. Mayhew: We will certainly keep a careful watch on it, but I am informed that the influence of the party is not great at the moment.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the "Star-spangled Banner" is sung in the American zone of England and will he therefore insist that only the "Red Flag" is sung by these foreign troops?

Mr. Ivor Thomas: If the suggestion of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) is carried out, can the verse beginning, "In Moscow's dungeons dark and vile," be included?

Sea Traffic (U.S.S.R.)

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what are the estimated quantities of raw materials, machinery, and equipment, which have reached the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics directly or indirectly from the British zone of Germany by sea; and how far this traffic is permitted by the authorities under his control.

Mr. Mayhew: My right hon. Friend has no record of any commercial exports direct to the U.S.S.R. by sea; nor of goods destined for third countries which may have been re-exported to the Soviet Union after leaving ports in the British zone. The U.S.S.R. have, however, received 168,400 tons of machinery and industrial equipment as reparations by sea since 1946.

Major Lloyd: Will the Minister give an assurance that, since our landward blockade has been imposed, no illegitimate traffic has been going to Russia by sea?

Mr. Mayhew: I cannot say that there has been no smuggling, but I can say, as I have said in my reply, that we have no record of any commercial trade.

FALKLAND ISLANDS

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many aliens have established posts on British territory in the Falkland Islands or their dependencies; and what steps have been taken to remove such organised posts as have been set up.

Mr. Mayhew: Occupied posts have been established, in defiance of our protests, by the Argentines on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys group, on Gamma Island in the Palmer Archipelago, and on Deception Island in the South Shetlands group; and by the Chileans on Greenwich Island in the South Shetlands group and on South Graham Land.
The House will be aware that His Majesty's Government have, on more than one occasion, offered to refer this question to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but the Argentine and Chilean Governments have not seen fit to avail themselves of this offer. In August last, the future of the whole Antarctic region formed the subject of a formal approach by the United States Government to the Governments of the countries concerned. The outcome of the United States approach is not yet clear, but it is hoped that international discussion will eventually lead to an amicable settlement of our differences with the Argentine and Chilean Governments; and that no question will therefore arise of the removal of the Argentine and Chilean parties.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the impression has been given that the Government's attitude towards this problem has been very weak indeed? How long will this violation—for violation it is—of British territory be tolerated by His Majesty's Government?

Mr. Mayhew: I do not agree that the Government's attitude has been weak. I think we have shown a good example of restraint in this matter and of going through the proper forms of international collaboration. As to the second part of the supplementary question, I have nothing to add except that the results of the United States approach must be known first.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Why should the British Government have to refer to an international organisation the ownership or otherwise of a definite piece of the British Empire? Surely what little we have left, has nothing to do with any foreigners?

Mr. Mayhew: It is perfectly proper if a difference of view like this arises that we should if we wish refer it to the International Court, and that is what we have offered to do.

Mr. Kirkwood: Seeing that the Opposition are so hilarious about my hon. Friend's reply, do they want the Government to declare war?

BRUSSELS TREATY (CONFERENCE)

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any further statement to make on the discussions which recently took place at The Hague under Article III of the Brussels Treaty.

Mr. Mayhew: My right hon. Friend is not yet in a position to make a statement on the discussions at this recent meeting.

Mr. Lindsay: But are we to understand that this conference took place at The Hague over the removal of restrictions, and that there is nothing to report? It is an important subject.

Mr. Mayhew: The conference was held, and made some recommendations, but those have still to be considered by the Permanent Commission. When the Permanent Commission has considered them, a statement will be made.

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN (REFUGEES)

Professor Savory: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the number of unemployed in the town of Flensburg is more than 10,000, in Flensburg-Land nearly 6,000, in Husum-Land and Südtondern-Land over 5,000, and that the northern districts of South-Schleswig have the greatest unemployment in the whole of Western Germany; and whether he will take steps to relieve this country of its burden of refugees, as they cannot possibly be absorbed in an agricultural country like Schleswig, whereas certain parts of Western Germany are clamouring for workers in industry and mining.

Mr. Mayhew: My right hon. Friend is aware that the Land Schleswig-Holstein is carrying a disproportionate share of the refugee burden, and that unemployment is resulting. There is, however, nothing which can be usefully added at present to the speech made by my right hon. Friend, the Minister of State, in the Adjournment Debate of 4th March. The report of the Tripartite Working Party on Refugees will be considered at the next meeting of the Military Governors on 30th March.

Professor Savory: Could not the hon. Gentleman give us an explanation why


this enormous surplus of unemployed should not be sent to the Southern parts of the Western zone where the employers are clamouring for workers both in industry and in mining?

Mr. Mayhew: We think there is a case for distributing the burden of refugees more evenly over the Western zones, and it is for this reason that we have set up this working party whose report will be considered on 30th March.

Mr. Yates: Is the Minister aware that in the district mentioned in this Question, the refugees outnumber the population? In view of the urgency of a matter of this kind, because of the intolerable burdens which are imposed upon the local population, will my hon. Friend make some urgent representations in regard to the matter?

Mr. Mayhew: I agree that the burden of refugees is a heavy one but I cannot accept that there are more refugees than local inhabitants. That is not my information. I have nothing to add to the fact that the report of the working party will be considered next week by the Military Governors.

SPAIN (DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS)

Mr. William Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether during his coming visit to the United States of America he will discuss with the other signatories of the Atlantic Pact the future position of Spain; and whether, in view of her great strategic value in any future defence of Western Europe, he is now prepared to propose the annulment of the United Nations' resolution recommending the severing of diplomatic relations with Spain.

Mr. Mayhew: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend has no present intention of holding any such discussion; nor is he prepared to propose the annulment of the United Nations' resolution of December, 1946.

Mr. Teeling: If this question is raised, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that Spain is vitally necessary for the defence of Western Europe and, furthermore, that there is such a thing—

Mrs. Leah Manning: What about 1938?

Mr. Teeling: —as Christianity and forgiveness, and is it not about time we forgave anything we were angry about?

Mr. Platts-Mills: Link up with the country's enemies and with the Fascists. That is what you want.

Mr. Mayhew: There are many other factors besides these strategic considerations we shall have to bear in mind.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is not this severance of diplomatic relations a direct intervention in the internal affairs of Spain? There is no justification for it at all, and is it not time it was brought to an end?

Mr. Mayhew: We have not severed diplomatic relations with Spain. The Ambassador has been withdrawn. And we have certainly not violated any Article of the Charter relating to infringement of internal affairs by our action.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Why did we withdraw our Ambassador?

Mr. Bramall: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the clause in the Atlantic Pact saying that this is for the defence of democratic institutions?

Major Lloyd: Is the Minister aware of how much out of touch he is in his stubborn reply with public opinion throughout the world?

JAPAN (PEACE NEGOTIATIONS)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in the coming consultations concerning a Pacific Pact on lines similar to the Atlantic Pact, consideration will be taken of the peculiar position of Japan; and whether the opportunity will be taken to discuss the possibility of those Powers present making a separate peace with Japan and after that including her in such a pact.

Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Member's Question is based on a false assumption. No consultations concerning a Pacific Pact have been arranged.

Mr. Teeling: But is it not in contemplation? Did not the hon. Gentleman see a statement by the Australian Prime


Minister that it is high time a Pacific Pact was arranged? Further, does he not realise that it is now four years since the Armistice with Japan, and that there is no reason why we should not come to some agreement?

Mr. Mayhew: I believe there was some misunderstanding about the statement of the Australian Prime Minister. There have been no consultations for a Pacific Pact.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that Japan was a signatory of the original Anti-Comintern Pact, and will he tell us what is the objection to Japan joining a pact which is presumably for the same purpose?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOLD COAST

Youth Training Scheme

Mr. Erroll: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the unanimous recommendations of the Gold Coast Finance Committee, in connection with the youth service citizenship training scheme, have been quashed by the Gold Coast Government.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): The hon. Member appears to be misinformed. The scheme was referred back by the Standing Finance Committee on 22nd February for further information and a revised estimate of cost. It was to be considered further yesterday by the Select Committee on the Estimates for the year 1949–50.

Mr. Erroll: Will the Minister call for the original minutes of the Finance Committee, and thus ascertain for himself the full and vehement support which the Legislative Council for the Gold Coast wishes to give to the full youth service scheme?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, I think there is general feeling that the scheme should be supported, but the matter is referred back, merely on grounds of cost, for a revised estimate.

Mr. Erroll: Will the Minister support it?

Cocoa Tree Disease

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what Government experiments have been made in the Gold

Coast to test the efficacy of the nascent chlorine method of treatment of swollen shoot disease, and with what results.

Mr. Creech Jones: In an announcement issued to the Press on 6th January, the Gold Coast Government stated that this method of treatment had been tried up to double the strength advocated, with no effect on the mealy-bug which is the vector of the disease. The announcement added that the Government were prepared to arrange a demonstration if desired.

Gold Mines (Production)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what recommendations he has received concerning the gold mines in the Gold Coast which would enable them to increase the gold production and help bridge the gap in our dollar deficit with the United States of America; and what action he has taken on such recommendations.

Mr. Creech Jones: I have received no such recommendations.

Mr. Teeling: Is the right hon. Gentleman really suggesting that he has no information at all, either himself or from the Gold Coast Government, on the subject of trying to improve the production of gold; and does he not know that at least 35 million dollars could be provided, and that the Americans will not feel very happy if we do not do something about it?

Mr. Creech Jones: The hon. Gentleman has asked me a completely different question. I have replied to his Question to the effect that the recommendations to which he refers have not been made to me.

Mr. Keeling: I beg to give notice that, subject to your approval, Mr. Speaker, I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment tomorrow week.

Mr. Gallacher: Why does not the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) leave it to his spiritual friend?

Immigration Laws

Sir Peter Macdonald: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is now in a position to state what further action he has taken regarding the directive issued by the Government of the


Gold Coast recently in connection with immigration; and what is the present position.

Mr. Creech Jones: In accordance with the undertaking which I gave in the House on 16th February, there have been discussions with the interests concerned regarding immigration procedure and these are still proceeding. The matter was debated in the Gold Coast Legislative Council on 16th March on a motion that the directive should be withdrawn and replaced by Regulations. Wide support was expressed during the debate for the general policy of immigration control. The Attorney-General suggested that, as the Gazette Notice and directive were evidently capable of misunderstanding, they should be reframed in order to remove ambiguity. This was accepted by the Council. Action will be taken accordingly.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say what, if any, is the difference between the immigration laws in the Gold Coast, as now proposed, and the immigration laws in Jamaica or St. Vincent and British Guiana, referred to in Question No. 23?

Mr. Creech Jones: I should be happy to do so if I could do so in the space of a sentence.

Sir P. Macdonald: Before this directive is put into law, will it be placed on the Table of the House so that hon. Members may be able to see it?

Mr. Creech Jones: It is not usual for such papers to be placed on the Table of the House, but I can assure the hon. Member that consideration will be given in London to any regulations that are framed.

SEYCHELLES (LEGAL JUDGMENT)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has yet had time to consider the criticism made by the Chief Justice in the Seychelles of the former Acting Attorney-General; and if he will make a further statement on the subject.

Mr. Creech Jones: I am not yet in a position to complete his consideration of

the questions to which the judgment gives rise, particularly as I am informed that the case is being taken on appeal to the Supreme Court in Mauritius.

Mr. Gammans: Does the right hon. Gentleman know of any other instance in British Colonial history where the Acting Attorney-General has been referred to as "a kind of person who, without compunction, would resort to blackmail"?

Mr. H. D. Hughes: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. If this matter is the subject of legal appeal, is it not sub judice and, therefore, inappropriate that it should be a matter of comment in this House?

Mr. Speaker: If the case is sub judice—I was not clear—then we must not ask questions about it.

Mr. Gammans: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. It is not the fitness of this man's appointment which is sub judice. It is an appeal to the Supreme Court which is sub judice and, therefore, I would respectfully suggest that the question of his fitness for appointment can be raised in this House.

Mr. Creech Jones: The question of his fitness does not arise; he is not in any official appointment of the Seychelles Government.

Mr. Gammans: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when this blot on British Colonial administration is likely to receive his consideration?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have already explained to the House that the judgment of the Chief Justice is being examined.

HONG KONG (POLICE OFFICERS)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why, since a number of Hong Kong police officers seconded from the Metropolitan Police Force and now declared redundant can return to that Force, whilst men who came from county police forces cannot return, he did not, when engaging these men, come to some agreement with their original employers for eventual re-instatement; and what steps he is taking to


remedy this inequality, in view of the shortage of experienced police officers in this country.

Mr. Creech Jones: When members of United Kingdom police forces were being recruited in 1945 for Hong Kong, it was made clear to them at the outset that appointment would be on agreement and would involve resignation from their home appointments. Those who accepted appointment to Hong Kong in fact received a refund of their pension contributions. In the case of ex-Metropolitan Police officers, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis subsequently agreed that they could be reinstated if necessary, subject to certain conditions. It has not been possible, however, to make similar arrangements in the case of the majority of ex-county and borough police officers.

Mr. Gammans: But has the right hon. Gentleman done anything to try to get these men back their jobs? Surely he will admit that he has at least a moral obligation towards them, if nothing more?

Mr. Creech Jones: That question need not be put to me, because it is common knowledge amongst the men concerned that every effort has been made for them to get reinstatement in the Forces from which they came.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Jamaica (Tallow Imports)

Sir P. Macdonald: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what complaints have been received from the Jamaican soap manufacturers at the excessive price of £234 a ton which they are obliged to pay to Argentina for tallow which they can buy in the United States of America for £80 a ton, although both these countries are dollar areas; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. Creech Jones: Press criticisms in Jamaica, which have been repeated in the Press here, have been brought to my notice. No allotment of tallow from Argentina has been made to Jamaica for 1949. The Colony is making a purchase in the United States.

St. Vincent (Entry Conditions)

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the indignation expressed in British Guiana at the restraints on freedom of movement and speech imposed on Mrs. Janet Jagan by the immigration authorities of St. Vincent, when she and her husband, a member of the Legislative Council of British Guiana, visited that island on holiday; and whether he will inquire into the incident, and ensure free movement of British subjects in the British West Indies.

Mr. Creech Jones: I have received protests in this matter from certain bodies in British Guiana. I have ascertained that Mrs. Jagan was permitted to land in St. Vincent on certain conditions, one of which was that she should not attempt to convene or address public gatherings while in that Colony. The movements of British subjects in the British West Indies are subject to the immigration laws of the various Colonies, and the immigration authorities in St. Vincent appear to have acted in accordance with the local law.

Mr. Skinnard: Is not the Secretary of State aware that in this case the purpose of the visit of Mrs. Jagan and her husband, a member of the Legislative Council of British Guiana, was for a holiday?

Mr. Creech Jones: That may be so, but the local Government have acted in accordance with their own local laws.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these two people are proved Communists, who were the agitators in British Guiana last year, and that it is very proper that they should be kept out?

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL EMPIRE

Regional Scientific Conference, Africa

Mr. M. Philips Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement about the forthcoming Conference on co-operation between France, Belgium, Portugal and this country with regard to scientific and technological co-operation in tropical Africa; and who will be the British representatives.

Mr. Creech Jones: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the African Regional Scientific Conference which is being convened in South Africa by the Government of the Union next October. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are among the Governments to whom invitations have been sent.

Mr. Philips Price: Is it not desirable, in view of the fourth point in President Truman's inaugural address, to prepare the ground for co-operation in Africa between the countries of Western Europe, who have colonies there?

Mr. Creech Jones: This is a technical conference. The Agenda is likely to cover a wide field and representatives of our own Colonial Governments will undoubtedly take part in it.

Leprosy (Treatment)

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what quantities of sulphurtone are being sent to each of the Colonies where leprosy is prevalent for the treatment of that disease; and if the supply is sufficient to meet the requirements of the leper settlements under the supervision of his Department.

Mr. Creech Jones: Three million 0.5 gramme tablets and 1,000 grammes of powder have been supplied to colonies since December, 1947, and a further 1,695,000 tablets and 25,000 grammes of powder are in the course of supply. No difficulty is being experienced by the Crown Agents in meeting all indents received from Colonial Governments for supplies of sulphurtone.

Mr. Awbery: While thanking the Minister for what is being done by the Colonial Office, may I ask him to keep continually in mind the special needs of these people, who are isolated from the rest of the community, because they sometimes feel that they are forgotten men?

Mr. Creech Jones: Certainly.

KENYA ("LABOUR MONTHLY")

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the Governor of Kenya has issued an order banning the import of the

"Labour Monthly" into that Colony; and if he will give an explanation of this action.

Mr. Creech Jones: I am asking the Governor for information and will write to the hon. Member as soon as I have received his reply.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of all the talk we hear in this House about freedom and democracy, will not the Minister write and tell the Governor to remove this ban and allow this very valuable educational organ to go into the Colony?

Mr. Creech Jones: We have no know ledge that this ban has been imposed.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: In inviting the Governor to make any comments or explanations on this matter, does my right hon. Friend consider that any useful purpose would be served if he sent to the Governor a copy of yesterday's statement by the Home Secretary on the virtues of toleration?

Mr. Creech Jones: I think that is quite unnecessary. All our Colonial Governments are very liberally-minded and conduct their administration with the utmost tolerance

Oral Answers to Questions — MALAYA

British Casualties

Air-Commodore Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many British service and civilian lives have been lost in Malaya, due to action by bandits, during the past 12 months.

Mr. Creech Jones: Twenty-seven civilian European British subjects and 40 European British members of the Security Forces were killed in Malaya in the 12 months ending 17th March. 1949.

Air-Commodore Harvey: is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the planters are being given sufficient protection, and will he say whether the dangerous situation in Malaya is clearing up? Does he see any improvement?

Mr. Creech Jones: The situation is not what we would wish it to be, but it is easier. I am in constant touch with the High Commissioner. Everything that can be done is being done, not only in the


way of equipment; the requirements of the situation are being studied most carefully. We are trying to help the High Commissioner in every way we can.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Does the answer of the right hon. Gentleman mean that everything for which the High Commissioner has asked has been, and will continue to be, granted?

Mr. Creech Jones: All his requests to us so far have been met.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Does the right hon. Gentleman still keep in touch with unofficial opinion, which, I assure him, may very well guide him best in these matters?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have received a large number of letters and representations from unofficial opinion, which I study most carefully. We maintain constant touch with the High Commissioner to see in what other ways the situation can be improved.

Air-Commodore Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my first supplementary question: Are the planters being given adequate protection?

Mr. Creech Jones: I tried to say—if I did not say it, I apologise—that we are trying to give all the planters and miners all possible support and protection within our power.

Compensation Claims

Sir P. Macdonald: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that, in a letter dated 8th November, 1948, with regard to the claim of Mr. E. M. Stewart for compensation for his car requisitioned in Malaya, he stated that this was a matter for the War Office, but that the Under-Secretary of State for War, writing on the same subject on 14th March, 1949, stated that this claim appeared to be against the Malayan Government and was being dealt with by the Colonial Office; and whether, in view of the indignation felt in Malaya about the inability of the various authorities to deal efficiently wth these claims, he will make a statement as to where responsibility in these matters lies, and what is the appropriate remedy for those who are aggrieved.

Mr. Creech Jones: The hon. Member misunderstood my letter. The passages to which he refers did not relate to Mr. Stewart's claim which, it has never been disputed, is a matter for the Federation authorities, who are still investigating it. This claim is, however, in respect of property which was stated to have been purchased, not requisitioned.
Claims in respect of property requisitioned for the use of the Regular Forces are dealt with in the first instance by the local representatives of the appropriate Service Departments. Claims in respect of requisitions by the Civil Government for the use by the Civil Government or by Volunteer forces are dealt with by the Malayan War Damage Claims Commission. Claims either on the military or the civil authorities may be submitted to the Joint Claims Officer in Singapore. Where legal liability cannot be established claims fall to be dealt with as normal war damage claims under the proposed ex gratia scheme for war damage losses in Malaya. Those who are aggrieved have recourse to appeal boards set up under the local Emergency Regulations.

Sir P. Macdonald: Is it not a fact that a very large number of claims in Singapore and Malaya are still unsettled, and that claimants who had their property requisitioned during the war are being pushed around from one department to another and can get no satisfaction whatever? This is only one case from amongst hundreds.

Mr. Creech Jones: The procedure is perfectly clear. Sufficient notice has been drawn to it in the territory. In the particular case to which my attention has been drawn, I think the right procedure was indicated to the hon. Member.

Death Sentence (Appeal)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that Mr. Ganapathy, the former President of the Pan-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions, has been sentenced to death in Malaya; and if he will state the charges upon which the death sentence has been passed.

Mr. Creech Jones: This man was tried on 15th March on a charge of unlawfully carrying a revolver and six rounds of


ammunition. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He has appealed and the appeal is still pending.

Mr. Piratin: As he has appealed, I hope the appeal will be successful and may I ask—

Mr. Speaker: If there is an appeal I gather the matter is sub judice and the hon. Member cannot ask further questions.

Mr. Piratin: I would like to ask a question of a general kind and not attempt to deal specifically with the incident. Is there a law in Malaya which permits the authorities to send a man to gaol for carrying a revolver?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have made a complete statement to the House regarding the emergency regulations and the new ordinances necessary under the existing emergency.

SIERRA LEONE (MINING BENEFITS FUND)

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what was the total sum available in the Protectorate Mining Benefits Fund in Sierra Leone for the year 1947; whether this was entirely disbursed on various social and economic projects; and what is the present balance in the fund.

Mr. Creech Jones: The revenue of the Fund in 1947 was about £14,800. Of this sum about £11,700 was paid out on social and economic projects, and a balance of slightly over £3,000 remained with the Treasurer at the end of the year. In addition there is a Reserve Fund of about £11,300. The accounts for 1948 are not yet available.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

U.S. Submarine's Visit

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty in consequence of what provision and of which treaty or agreement is the United States submarine "Dogfish" to spend a month with the destroyer flotilla of the British Home Fleet; and whether he is

satisfied that the security of the antisubmarine detection devices in the Firth of Clyde will not be compromised by the presence there of this warship of a foreign Power.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. John Dugdale): The arrangement to which the hon. Member refers is not the subject of any treaty or agreement. The answer to the second part of the Question is, "Yes, Sir."

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is it not clear that the Admiralty, of course in agreement with the Tories, are conniving at the first stages of the military occupation of our country?

Mr. Speaker: There was an imputation in that supplementary question and the hon. Member must obey the rules for supplementary questions.

Mr. Platts-Mills: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted to complete my question and ask the latter part, which is not subject to your Ruling? Does the hon. Gentleman realise that if he were to announce openly to the country the effect of this kind of action, it would be denounced and opposed by millions of British people?

Mr. J. P. L. Thomas: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this example of close co-operation between the Royal Navy and the navy of the United States of America will be welcomed by the whole country as showing that the North Atlantic Pact has teeth?

H.M.S. "Ajax"

Mr. Donner: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether any decision has now been taken regarding the future of H.M.S. "Ajax."

Mr. Dugdale: No, Sir.

Mr. Donner: Will the Parliamentary Secretary take the House into his confidence and explain how it is that for something like a year now the Government have been unable to decide not to sell to a foreign Power this ship which is connected with a gallant and, indeed, an immortal action in our naval history?

Mr. Dugdale: I realise that the time has been rather long and I have said in the past that I would make a statement


before long. I hope the House will believe me when I say now I hope to be in a position to make a statement shortly and by "shortly" I mean within about three or four weeks.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Will the Parliamentary Secretary assure the House that neither the "Ajax" nor any other of His Majesty's ships, will be sold to Chile while that country is in occupation of British territory in the Falkland Islands?

Mr. Dugdale: I cannot anticipate the statement I shall make shortly.

Married Quarters, Eglinton

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what are the number, quality and type of married quarters available for both officers and ratings at Royal Naval Air Station, Eglinton.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Walter Edwards): No official married quarters have yet been provided at the Royal Naval Air Station, Eglinton, for officers, or for ratings. Certain redundant buildings have, however, been occupied for some time by a total of 28 officers and 69 ratings and their families. With the exception of the captain's quarters, none of the buildings in question was constructed for use as married quarters. The buildings occupied by the officers are in brick construction and their condition varies from fair to good. Those occupied by ratings are lined Nissen huts, all of which are in fair condition.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that facilities at these isolated air stations are of vital importance to the Navy and that, in comparison with the performance the Royal Air Force are putting up, they do not bear examination?

Mr. Edwards: Yes, I am aware of that and in fact priority No. 1 for the Navy is being given to remote air stations.

Rosyth Dockyard

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the retention of Rosyth Dockyard on a full-time basis.

Mr. W. Edwards: I can only refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statement I made when this matter was raised on the Motion for the Adjournment on 27th October, 1947.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: How long is this nonsense going on? Could not the hon. Gentleman agree that after nearly four years of peace they should be able to say whether they want Rosyth base or not? Who is holding it up?

Mr. Edwards: I cannot agree that there is any nonsense at all. Contrary to what the then Government did after World War I, we have not closed it down. But what we have said is that Rosyth Dockyard, as all the other home dockyards, will be kept open until such time may arise when it is necessary to close one and then they will be taken into consideration together.

Mr. Piratin: Could the hon. Gentleman ask the Foreign Secretary to get permission from the American Government when he is there this week-end?

Mr. Speaker: That is out of Order.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that times have changed very much since we had an Adjournment Debate on this matter and, in view of the importance of Rosyth in two world wars, that it should be prevented from going to rack and ruin?

Mr. Edwards: It is of great importance to all five dockyards to keep in commission. We are not saying we will not keep Rosyth in full commission but we can made a promise that it will be considered along with other dockyards, if necessary.

Free Passages

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will now consider the possibility of adopting the same arrangements made by the Air Ministry for officers of the rank of Wing-Commander and upwards, and will permit Naval officers of equivalent rank when proceeding abroad to obtain free passages for their children's nurses.

Mr. Dugdale: Naval officers holding certain shore appointments abroad have for some time been entitled to a passage


for a children's nurse at Government expense. This arrangement has recently been under review and it is now proposed to substitute for it arrangements similar to those referred to by the hon. and gallant Member.

Mr. Scollan: Are the same facilities applied to the bricklayers?

Compassionate Leave

Mr. A. Edward Davies: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1) what are the conditions or regulations involved and who is the final arbiter in determining whether an application for compassionate leave shall be granted to a marine serving overseas when it is reliably established that his parent is critically ill;
(2) why permission for compassionate leave was not granted to P.O./X127259 Marine Robert Mosedale, H.M.S. "Ocean," to visit his father, who lay critically ill, and about whom application had been made by the medical superintendent of the hospital in Stoke-on-Trent and by the local branch of the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association on the request of the parents in the middle of February last.

Mr. Dugdale: No precise regulations are laid down for the grant of compassionate leave. Such leave is, however, granted, if at all practicable, in cases where there is no other son or daughter at home. The final decision in all cases rests with the local Naval authorities, who have to take into consideration the requirements of the Service, as well as the wishes of the man and his relatives. In the case of Marine Mosedale, it was found that a daughter and son-in-law were already at home and the captain of the ship decided that he could not be given leave.

Mr. Davies: Does my hon. Friend know that in this case the daughter had a small child and was not well and the son-in-law was not well? Does he appreciate that where there is only one son in the family it is most essential that the man should be permitted to go home, especially when he knows that a man in a ship nearby at Malta was permitted to go home, as a result of representations from his sister at home?

Mr. Dugdale: In this ease there was, as I say, another son present, but my noble Friend has decided to look into this case personally to see what the position was in regard to this particular rating.

INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION STANDARDS

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Postmaster-General whether he will commence discussions with representatives of Western European and other nations with a view to achieving uniformity in lineage and frequency in television transmissions.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Wilfred Paling): The United Kingdom is already taking part in the examination of television standards which is being made by a constituent organisation of the International Telecommunications Union.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman intending that this country should persevere in a system which gives out the poorest definition in television of any country?

Mr. Paling: I do not agree with the implications of that statement.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a technical fact?

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Communications Department (Research)

Mr. Skeffington: asked the Postmaster-General whether any arrangements are being made to co-ordinate the research activities of his Communications Department with those of Cable and Wireless.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Yes, Sir, arrangements already exist to co-ordinate the research of Cable and Wireless Limited and the Post Office in matters of common interest.

Postal Services

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: asked the Postmaster-General when he proposes to restore a system of early postal deliveries and late collections comparable to those existing before the last war.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer given to the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) on 9th March.

Colonel Hutchison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that very great inconvenience and, indeed, loss of money is being occasioned by the failure to provide proper postal facilities to industry throughout the country? Will he revise the matter again, as there is plenty of money with which to do it?

Mr. Paling: I am aware that there is some inconvenience because of lack of collections, but the main reason is lack of manpower.

Major Tufton Beamish: Cannot part of the £20 million profit the Post Office made last year be used to make the service as cheap and as efficient as it was under Tory "misrule" before the war?

Mr. Wilson Harris: Does this mean that we shall have to await the return of a Conservative Government to get a respectable postal service? Would not that possibly be a rather high price to pay? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister of Labour yesterday stated that there were 360,000 unemployed? Could not he secure some of them to deliver the letters?

Mr. Paling: My answer to the first part of the question is that I hope not.

Mr. Grimston: Are we to understand from the answer of the right hon. Gentleman that he does not contemplate any improvement at all in the present services?

Colonel Hutchison: In view of the unsatisfactory situation, I beg to give notice that I shall endeavour to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that letters posted at mid-day in the Central Lobby of the House of Commons do not reach Cheshire until the second post of the following day; and whether, in view of the fact that similar delays occur throughout other parts of the country, he will state what steps he is taking to improve the postal service.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I am aware and much regret that the hon. and gallant Member has suffered inconvenience and annoyance from delays in the post which should not have occurred. I am taking all practicable steps to improve matters.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Is the Minister aware that before the war when postage was only l½d., letters posted in the Knutsford division in the morning were delivered in London the same evening? Would the right hon. Gentleman therefore consider restoring the postage to l½d., in view of the fact that letters now take three to five times as long to be delivered at nearly twice the cost?

Mr. Paling: I am afraid that the question of restoring the postage to 1½d. is too big to be dealt with at the moment. I will look at the other matter. I have already admitted that the services are less but I hope to improve them when the occasion permits.

Mr. Erroll: Does the Minister realise that the service between London and North Cheshire is absolutely deplorable?

Mr. Paling: No, Sir, I do not admit any such thing. What I do admit is that some of the evidence which the hon. Member has sent me is probably connected with the same fault as that raised by the hon. and gallant Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEPHONE SERVICE

Installations (Applications)

Commander Maitland: asked the Postmaster-General if he will now give an answer to the letter written to him on 25th January, 1949, by the hon. and gallant Member for the Horncastle Division in regard to Wing-Commander Elliott.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: My reply was sent on 21st March, 1949. I regret that it is not possible, at present, to provide a telephone for Wing-Commander Elliott.

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that, owing to the long waiting list for telephones, Regular Army officers, who seldom spend more than two years in one station, are unable to have the use of a telephone and may serve for many years on end without this facility and whether he will review this matter urgently.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: If an applicant for telephone service changes his address before service has been given, the application is carried forward, with the original date, to the new address. Applications from Regular Army officers are accordingly not affected if they change stations in this country. As regards officers and others returning from abroad, I regret that it would be impracticable to give them special priority.

Major Beamish: Is not the Minister aware that these officers start off without having a telephone at all and the result of that is that there is no priority and they may have to serve 10 or 15 years at home without having the use of a telephone?

Mr. Paling: I am sure that my answer indicates that that is not the position.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Postmaster-General what categories of persons are given priority in applications for new telephone installations and extensions.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Priority for the provision of telephone service is given to essential requirements of Government Departments, public utilities, health and life-saving services, firms engaged on production and distribution for export or for saving imports, and farmers. Subject to these broad categories of priority, business applicants are in general given preference over residential applicants.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: What precisely is meant by firms engaged in the saving of imports? Is it right to give such firms, which might be quite spurious firms and which have only a transient existence, the right of way over Army officers, as referred to in the previous Question, and established and genuine traders?

Mr. Paling: We are, of course, suffering from a shortage, and there is a big waiting list; but we have endeavoured to give priorities on the best possible basis, and in our experience it is working fairly well.

Major Beamish: In view of the unsatisfactory answer to Question No. 40, coupled with the answer to Question No. 39, I beg to give notice that I hope to raise this matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.

Major Gates: asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the decision taken in the Post Office Telephones, Manchester Area, to place an embargo, as from 1st March, 1949, upon the installation of telephones in residential premises; that at least 25,000 households are affected, including the homes of those who are engaged on essential work in connection with the export drive; and if he will state the reasons for the failure of the Post Office to provide this service.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: In Manchester, and elsewhere, we have had to concentrate our available labour on the provision of telephones urgently required in the national interest. In the Manchester Area, until arrears of essential work are overtaken, we have had temporarily to suspend the completion of any fresh agreements for telephones for purely residential lines.

Major Gates: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long this embargo is to continue?

Mr. Paling: No, Sir.

Mr. Janner: asked the Postmaster-General how many applications for telephones have been made since the close of the war to the present date; how many of this number have had telephones installed; and when he expects that the position will become easier.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Nearly 1,300,000 applications for telephone service were made between 30th September, 1945, and 31st December, 1948. I regret that I cannot say how many of these are included among the 1,100,000 which were met during the same period. I cannot say when the position will become easier.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that amongst the many applicants for telephones whom the right hon. Gentleman categorises as private residents are people who need to use telephones mainly for business and professional purposes, and would he give particular attention to them?

Mr. Paling: If that is so they will get some kind of priority for that reason.

Shared Service

Mr. Gammans: asked the Postmaster-General for how long it is anticipated that private subscribers must


accept the principle of a shared service before being given a line.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I cannot at present foresee when new and removing residential subscribers will no longer be required to accept liability to share their lines. Shared service is enabling us to provide telephones for many people whose applications could not otherwise be met.

Mr. William Shepherd: To what extent is the Postmaster-General getting a bigger allocation of capital equipment in order to meet this demand?

Mr. Paling: That is another matter.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: In view of the general disquiet about the state of the telephone service and the priority system now in force, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to receive a deputation of Members of Parliament?

Mr. Paling: I do not agree that there is any general disquiet, in view of the fact that we have put in one in three telephones since the war.

Captain Crookshank: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the difficulty now is labour or materials, because at one time it was both?

Mr. Paling: Both, Sir.

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY

Mr. Erroll: asked the Lord President of the Council how overlapping is avoided between the Committee on Industrial Productivity and its four panels, and the Anglo-American Productivity Council.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The British members of the Anglo-American Council were appointed by the Federation of British Industries, the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress. The membership of the Committee on Industrial Productivity and its panels includes persons appointed after consultation with these bodies. These members have undertaken to inform the Committee if any danger of overlapping should arise, so that appropriate mutual adjustment may if necessary be made.

Mr. Erroll: Cannot the Committee take any initiative in the matter? Must it wait until the productivity council takes the initiative?

Mr. Morrison: If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman is really getting himself worked up into a state of worry about these matters. It is quite unnecessary. It seems to me that the arrangements made are perfectly clear, and, as a matter of fact, they have two different jobs. There is really no point in the hon. Gentleman having sleepless nights about it. It is quite all right.

CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION (LECTURE SERVICE)

Mr. K. Lindsay: asked the Lord President of the Council what subjects are covered by the Central Office of Information lecture service; and what is the annual cost of this service.

Mr. H. Morrison: The main current themes of the lecture service provided by the Central Office of Information are: Economic Situation, Commonwealth and Western Union. The forecast of expenditure on this service for 1948–49 is £63,000.

Mr. K. Lindsay: asked the Lord President of the Council what is the guiding principle in selecting organisations on behalf of which the Central Office of Information subsidises lectures; who selects the lecturers; what is the average fee paid to them; and, in particular, on what principle the United Nations Association has been omitted from these organisations and the movement for Western Union included.

Mr. H. Morrison: If the hon. Member will refer to the annual report of the Central Office of Information for the year 1947–48, he will find details of its lecture service, from which he will see that it does not subsidise lectures on behalf of any organisation. The lecturers are selected by the Central Office of Information. The average fee is £1 14s. For the reasons why lectures on the United Nations have not been included in the service, I would refer him to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) on 10th March, 1948. Lectures on Western Union have been


given in response to a request by the Foreign Office acting in accordance with Article 3 of the Brussels Treaty.

Mr. Lindsay: While I am in favour of Article 3 of the Brussels Treaty, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman can he give any particular reason why this selection is made? Is he really in favour of sponsored lectures by the Government of the day, and is it not better to leave these voluntary societies to run under their own steam?

Mr. Morrison: There is a good deal of lecturing done under the auspices of the United Nations Association. Therefore, there is no overlapping in this respect at the moment, because we are not including United Nations lectures at present. Western Union has come in because it is a new subject. My view is that we must be adaptable in this lecture service and arrange subjects according to what the public interest requires at a certain time.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

Marriage Allowances

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Defence (1) why the increase in the marriage allowance of 3s. a day to officers whose wives are with them in Germany and of 6s. if the wives are living in this country, granted from 24th November, 1948, is not being paid to officers holding an emergency commission after 1st January, 1947; and if he will take steps to ensure that all officers shall receive it with arrears due from the appointed day;
(2) if he will give an estimate of the additional cost of giving all married officers the increased marriage allowance granted from 24th November, 1948.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): In my statement of 24th November last I said that the new rates of marriage allowance would not apply to National Service men. All those called up under the National Service Acts since 1st January, 1947, including officers, come within this category. I am advised that the cost of granting the increases to commissioned National Service men would be, very approximately, £50,000 a year. The increases could not, however, he given to officers only and if all ranks were included, the cost would be very much higher.

Mr. Lipson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this allowance was granted to enable officers, and other ranks also, to meet the cost of living, and how can he justify distinguishing between two sets of officers or other ranks when the conditions and needs of both are exactly the same? Is not his reply quite indefensible?

Mr. Alexander: The decision applies to National Service men and officers alike. I indicated in my statement of 24th November that in the case of National Service men as a whole they would have recourse, if necessary, to the National Service Grants Committee.

Mr. Lipson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this decision is causing very bitter resentment among officers because of the distinction, and will not the Government have another look at the matter? This ought to be a case of all or none.

Mr. Alexander: If it had to be a case like that, it would have to be all ranks as well as all officers.

Mr. Lipson: Why not?

Mr. Alexander: I have already indicated to the House in the statement last November what the position was—that if at this very young age men were married, knowing the basis of the allowances, then they came into the Services knowing what they were doing. Large numbers of hon. Members have tried to argue that these allowances should be revised altogether not for National Service men but for Regulars whom we are trying to get into the Services.

Civilian Employment (Eke Citizens)

Sir R. Ross: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what will be the policy of the Government as to the civilian employment of Eireann citizens with the Armed Forces after 18th April.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): This has not yet been settled in detail either for the Civil Service as a whole or for the Service Departments in particular, but the revised rules will observe the spirit of the Prime Minister's undertaking, given in this House on 25th November, 1948, that citizens of Eire shall not be treated as foreigners.

Sir R. Ross: Will the Financial Secretary bear in mind that Eire citizens will thus be bearing allegiance to another State whose policies may be distinguishable from ours, and therefore, is it wise that they should serve in connection with the Armed Forces?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: These matters were discussed when the British Nationality Act, 1948, was going through the House, and I am afraid I cannot add anything to what was said then by Government spokesmen.

Mr. Martin Lindsay: In view of the fact that Eire is not a signatory nation to the Atlantic Pact, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the Prime Minister should reconsider that policy?

Professor Savory: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, when the British Nationality Act was passing through this House, Eire was then part of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and that, therefore, his answer is wholly irrelevant?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Animal Feedingstuffs (Fish Meal)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Food how the current production of fish meal for animal feeding compares with the production a year ago and in 1938.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): Prewar production of fish meal for animal feeding is believed to have been about 70,000 tons a year. Production in 1948 was nearly 50,000 tons. No figures are yet available for 1949, as they are compiled quarterly.

Mr. Hurd: As the lack of feedingstuffs is holding up pig production will the right hon. Gentleman make the most strenuous efforts to increase the production of fish meal?

Mr. Strachey: Yes, Sir. That is a matter with which we are concerned and we are thinking of increasing the price. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will see an announcement.

Sir Frank Sanderson: Is it not a fact that fish meal for animal feeding is produced only from fish offal and surplus fish for which there is no ready market; and as the quantity available today is less than it was before, does not that merely indicate that there is a demand for the fish for human consumption without it

being converted into offal and finally into fish meal?

Mr. Strachey: Another considerable factor is that of fish heads and whether or not they are landed.

Meat Ration

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Food whether in view of the cut of 2d. in the meat ration, resulting from the Argentine meat deliveries falling behind, he will consider introducing a 14 day ration plan to overcome the difficulties of butchers in cutting an 8d. ration of fresh meat fairly.

Mr. Strachey: People may already arrange with their butcher to buy their ration fortnightly.

Mr. De la Bère: Does the Minister realise that it is almost impossible to cut 8d. worth of meat and does he therefore realise the great hardship to the consumer, the butcher and all concerned?

Mr. Strachey: There is no objection to people drawing their rations fortnightly.

Mr. De la Bère: Do I understand that the hon. Gentleman has done what I want? Surely not!

Mrs. Manning: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the majority of books are family books and that these families do not draw an 8d. ration; and may I ask him not to encourage butchers to do this as it caused much difficulty when it was done in the case of the bacon ration?

Mr. Drayson: Can the right hon. Gentleman arrange for eight weeks' ration to be drawn at one time?

Major Beamish: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he is shortly to join his predecessor on the Coal Board?

White Flour (Imports)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Food what quantity of white flour has been imported during the most recent period of 12 months for which figures are available; and from what countries.

Mr. Strachey: The quantity of flour imported during the 12 months ended 28th February, 1949, was 783,411 tons mainly from Australia and Canada.

Mr. Keeling: Could the Minister state the purpose of this importation of white flour?

Mr. Strachey: Yes, the flour is imported to make bread.

Mr. Keeling: White bread?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Would it not have been possible—I ask for information—to have imported this as whole grain so that we could have got the offal for feedingstuffs?

Mr. Strachey: That is true. We much prefer to import the highest possible proportion of wheat but it is necessary to take some proportion of flour, as we always did before the war.

U.S. AIR PERSONNEL (UNITED KINGDOM)

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Air what is now the number of United States Army Air Force personnel stationed in this country and when they may be expected to leave.

The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Arthur Henderson): The number of United States Air Force personnel stationed in this country at present is about 7,000. I am unable to say when they will leave.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Does it ever occur to my right hon. and learned Friend that if the Government some day decide to stand independent of America, the presence of these men might be something of a nuisance?

Mr. Thurtle: Does not the Minister agree that most of us regard these men as our friends and want them to stay?

Brigadier Medlicott: Can the Minister say how many fellow-travellers are also stationed in this country and how soon they, too, might be expected to leave?

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Air what was the purpose of the visit to this country of General Vandenberg, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, and General Norstad, Deputy Chief of Operations, United States Air Force.

Mr. A. Henderson: This visit was for the purpose of inspecting the United States Air Force in this country.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Will not my right hon. and learned Friend face the fact that these men came here as part of the job of preparing Britain as the atom base in an aggressive war against—

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Mr. Henderson: That statement is, of course, quite untrue.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is it in Order for the hon. Gentleman to cast a reflection of that nature on distinguished Allied officers?

Mr. Speaker: I thought that quite obvious. I rose and a denial of the hon. Member's statement was promptly given by the Secretary of State for Air. Aspersions should not be made on gallant officers belonging to friendly countries.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is it right to assume that I make an aspersion on a gallant officer in the service of a foreign country merely because I suggest that he is carying out what is his obvious duty of trying to make Britain a satellite?

Mr. Speaker: In his first question the hon. Gentleman drew a distinct inference and imputation which, after all, is not in Order in a supplementary question. We had better get on. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I did not ask the hon. Member for any withdrawal. I merely pointed out that it was out of Order.

B.O.A.C. BASE, FILTON

Colonel Hutchison: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation what saving per annum is expected to result from the moving of the British Overseas Airways Corporation maintenance base from Dorval to Filton as a result of cutting out dead flying between New York and Dorval.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): The immediate saving on direct costs of dead flying arising from the move from Dorval to Filton is estimated at £15,000 for the coming financial year. It is hoped that this figure can be progressively improved upon by closer integration of maintenance flying with the Corporation's other operations.

Colonel Hutchison: In view of the very small saving which the hon. Gentleman has revealed in that answer, would he agree with the report of the Corporation that this dead flying is one of the main contributory factors to the losses made?

Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."—[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

Orders of the Day — GERMANY AND EASTERN EUROPE

3.31 p.m.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: During the lifetime of this Parliament, there has been a steady and progressive deterioration in the international situation, very similar to that of the years preceding the war and following Hitler's assumption of power. Hitlerite Germany represented all the worst aspects of German nationalism, combined with the vulgar and nauseating characteristics of Nazism and Fascism.

Mr. Gallacher: And the big American bosses.

Mr. Macmillan: In the same way, the policy of the Kremlin—

Mr. Gallacher: No, Wall Street.

Mr. Macmillan: I understand that the hon. Gentleman will find nearly all this Debate rather painful to him. I therefore trust that he will get his interruptions over, clock in and report to his masters.
I was saying that, in the same way, the policy of the Kremlin today seems to unite into a single aggressive movement both the expansionist traditions of Russian imperialism and the subversive aims of international Communism.

Mr. Gallacher: That is the same speech as the right hon. Gentleman made last time. [Laughter.]

Mr. Macmillan: What is true can always be re-stated. I suggest that, perhaps, those hon. Gentlemen who seem to regard this as very comic may realise, before the summer is out, that it is a very tragic affair.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Where are you going to start the war? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is in the same category. Silly threats.

Mr. Macmillan: I ask the hon. Gentleman to contain himself while we debate these grave matters. If he is in disagree-

ment, he will no doubt have an opportunity of expressing his views.

Mr. Gallacher: I am going out. I shall be back in a few minutes.

Mr. Platts-Mills: On a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made a very grave threat, and has said that there is a danger of something that I gather means war this summer. Will he develop that and tell us what he means?

Mr. Macmillan: I shall try to develop it, if the hon. Gentleman will listen to me. Hitler relied mainly upon militarist aggression, although, of course he had his careful propaganda put out by his own movement—

Mr. Piratin: And the Conservatives.

Mr. Macmillan: Moscow relies on a skilful form of the "putsch," which gives the appearance of a genuine internal movement to the revolutionary processes which have turned one country after another into her satellites. Thus, in many ways, the Russian method is modelled more upon the Napoleonic than upon the Hitlerite model. The revolution is represented as meaning social freedom, but it becomes in fact the path to national servitude. While Moscow has been mainly concerned with the creation of a ring of satellite States, we must not forget how immense have been her territorial gains since the outbreak of the Second World War. While the British Empire has been in partial liquidation—I believe that is the orthodox phrase—the Czar's Empire has been almost wholly reconstituted and even extended. The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have all been reabsorbed—

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. You have ruled on several occasions in this House, Mr. Speaker, that offensive remarks about a friendly nation are not desirable. I know that my hon. Friend behind me has been pulled up once or twice. Is it not most offensive on the part of the right hon. Gentleman deliberately to go out of his way in order to introduce his own old friend the Czar and his rotten clique as having any association with Russia?

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman was saying nothing offensive. I gathered that he was stating the facts.

Mr. Gallacher: Further to that point of Order. There is no fact whatever concerning the existence of the Czar or Czarism in Russia. This is a deliberate attempt to make a case. The Czar was the right hon. Gentleman's own old friend.

Mr. Macmillan: The trouble about history and truth is that too often they are somewhat offensive to those who do not like them. I was discussing the Baltic states, and I was saying that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all been reabsorbed, with all the attendant horrors of the prison camps and the liquidation of the middle classes. Part of Finland, including Viipuri, with 400,000 inhabitants, has been taken over since the outbreak of the Second World War. Quite apart from the new aggression, we must remember the immense growth of the Russian Empire as it has been reconstituted.

Mr. Gallacher: America has taken over Britain since the war.

Mr. Macmillan: The provinces of Bessarabia and Bukovina in Roumania have been annexed, along with Moldavia and the Carpatho-Ukraine, and Koenigsberg on the one sea and Petsamo on the other have been seized. Since 1939, it is true to say that 70,000 square miles of territory and 24 million people have been added to the Russia Empire without any attempt, or even the colour of an attempt, to consult the people as to their wishes.
This constituted the first wave of aggression. The second wave is more recent, more spectacular and even more treacherous. It has involved the use—

Mr. Platts-Mills: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for the right hon. Gentleman in speaking about a friendly country to suggest that there has been treachery in the conduct of her affairs? Is it not right that the right hon. Gentleman should be called upon to justify that?

Mr. Speaker: I get a little tired of these phrases being bandied about when statements are made with which some hon. Members do not agree. Hon Members are entitled to state their own views, and all hon. Members should be ready to listen to the other side.

Mr. Macmillan: I say that these matters are better known to us because they involve countries with whom many hon. Members have had the closest associations and friendships dating back a long way; for instance, Czechoslovakia and Poland. This new menace now has under its control ex-enemy countries which, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, have looked to the Western tradition in religion and history, namely, Hungary and Roumania.
During the whole of this period of this seemingly irresistible advance we in Britain found ourselves going through a process of disillusionment and awakening which vividly recalls the pre-war years. At first we could scarcely believe it to be true; we could not believe that the genuine friendship, which we had honestly held out to our Russian Allies, could be so scornfully rejected. Never in history was such a fund of good will so rapidly accumulated or so recklessly squandered. We looked for the reason—we almost searched for excuses rather than face the harsh truth. His Majesty's Government have shown great patience, almost the patience of Job. They would not believe—they could not believe—that after the joint effort of war the alliance would fall so soon asunder.
For a time, as the House will remember, they toyed with the idea of playing the role of honest broker, of umpire, as it were, between Russia and America. They pretended to themselves that Marxist teaching was no longer dominant, that Lenin's theories and even Stalin's books did not mean what they plainly said. In the same way, pre-war statesmen either did not read or could not bring themselves to believe "Mein Kampf." Yet it must be admitted that neither the Nazis nor the Communists have ever disguised their purposes. Perhaps the deceit has been in this very shamelessness, for ordinary decent folk like our British people could hardly bring themselves to believe that what was set down in those books and writings was really meant in cold blood.
Now by a curious, and, perhaps, a unique repetition of history in each period of growing danger, it has fallen to one man to be the first to sense its menace and to proclaim fearlessly the remedy, and twice in a single lifetime to assume the role both of prophet and


patriot. I mean my right hon. Friend the Leader of His Majesty's Opposition. The remedy is the same today as it was then, as it has always been throughout all ages in our struggles for the defence of freedom. It is the great design, the grand alliance, collective security, call it what you will. Three years have passed almost to a day since the Fulton Speech. It is strange to recall the reception of that speech—

Mr. Gallacher: Make your own speech.

Mr. Macmillan: —both in Great Britain and in the United States. There were some who thought that the call to Anglo-American co-partnership in the defence of freedom was revolutionary, if not indecent. In Britain, opinion was much divided. The Government, especially the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, ignored the speech out of deliberate policy. When questioned in the House, the Prime Minister replied that he was not called upon to express any opinion on a speech delivered in another country by a private individual.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would the right hon. Gentleman give us the date of the Fulton speech and tell us whether it took place before or after the deterioration in our relations with Russia which he said he was reluctant to believe?

Mr. Macmillan: I think that the hon. Member is in danger of getting on the fellow travellers' bus. I thought he had got out of that.

Mr. Silverman: After that sneer, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now answer the question I asked him. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman means by a "fellow traveller"—it is a term more often used than defined—but if he means that I am the sort of person, like so many of those behind him, who sides with his country's enemies during the war, he is mistaken.

Mr. Macmillan: I had already said that it was exactly three years ago, or practically three years ago, since that speech was made. A simple calculation would lead the hon. Gentleman to suppose that the speech was made some time in the month of March, 1946.
I say that the Government of the day were very reticent of that matter. But the Socialist Party was not reticent, and 80 members of the party in the House of Commons placed a Motion on the Order Paper—the terms of which I have before me—condemning the speech in the strongest terms. If they had had their way, my right hon. Friend would have been exorcised by bell, book and candle. And yet, three years later, the Government have come to precisely the policy which he laid down at that time. I hope that it will 'prove less than three years for the implementation of the Zurich speech and the effective working of the Council of Europe and the European Assembly.
We have recently debated for four days—with the Defence Debate itself—the question of defence in all its various aspects; in other words, the methods by which we seek to create sufficient force to prevent a shooting war. But although, thank heavens, we are not engaged in a hot war, we are engaged in a cold war, and today the real subject of Debate is the progress of the cold war. How do we stand? What are the prospects? Can we hold the present position? Can we recapture lost ground? Where are the danger spots? What are the weaknesses of the enemy's position, and how can we maintain our own?
In so wide a field, I think we must select two or three special points like a scientist in a laboratory, and the two points to which I wish to draw the attention of the House—the two points where Communist aggression has found its most dynamic expression touching most closely the interests of the Western Powers—are Germany and Greece. I should like to say a word about both. There are, of course, other points of equal danger in the Middle East and Near East, but it is to these two aspects that I want to confine what I have to say. These are the advanced posts where the Communist patrols and vedettes have established contact with their enemy. Behind this outpost screen are the forward but well-entrenched lines of the satellite States, but before we can deal with those we must engage and drive in the outposts.
First, Germany. The Berlin airlift began on 28th June, 1948. It has been, as we are fond of saying—and it is certainly true—a miracle of improvisation


on the part of the Services, and the statesmen owe a great debt to the Services because they really had no policy and the Services have saved them. But we have begun to accept the airlift as if it were a kind of permanent feature of our international life. It runs very well with a great precision, rather like a train on the Underground, overloaded, but remarkably accurate and punctual, considering the difficulties. But although it is a technical marvel, I must say quite frankly that, in my view, it is essentially an act of political appeasement.
Can the lift be prolonged indefinitely? I am not wondering about it in terms of money; its cost is very small compared with the cost of anything else. Although it is a great burden on the Air Force itself and on its machines and personnel, I am more concerned at a short-term expedient being allowed to crystallise into a sort of permanent existence. It certainly keeps the beseiged city of Berlin alive, but it does not keep it functioning. Before June, when the blockade was imposed, the estimate was that Berlin required about 320,000 tons monthly. According to the best figures that I can get, it is receiving now about 125,000 tons monthly. What, therefore, are we and the United States going to do about the blockade?
I remember when the Russians began the blockade they put forward a lot of technical reasons. They said, "It is very unfortunate, but the railway has broken and the signals are out of order." Then they said, "You cannot go by the road because the bridges are broken." Then they said, "As for the canal, the locks are not in working order." In other words, they made a smoke screen of excuses, meaning to retire behind them if they were pressed too hard. When they saw that the Allies did not intend to force the issue and did not intend to stand on their legal and contractual rights, all these excuses were swept away; they were no longer necessary. It became no longer "You cannot pass," but "You may not pass." It is true that we got over this by hopping over the top, but have we solved the problem? I often wonder what history will say of that decision in June last year. Were we right or wrong? Would we have done better to face the issue squarely then? [An HON. MEMBER: "War."] I

do not think there would have been war. I think there would have been a Russian retirement. At any rate, if we had decided not to enforce our rights, could we not then have taken some stronger counter-measures such as the economic boycott of the Eastern zone? That has been very slow in getting under way.
We wasted month after month in interminable and quibbling negotiations about the currency, and everybody knew that the currency was not the real cause of the dispute. The currency was merely the excuse for the dispute. It was a trial of wills between the Russians and ourselves—[An HON. MEMBER: "And the Americans."]—the Russians and the Allies. The recent decision to operate the Western mark after eight months is of course a recognition of this truth that there is no hope of settling the question of the currency as such. In February of this year, a month ago, the embargo was extended, but it was very late in the day. It was extended to all remaining road transport and all the normal exports from the West. That is very effective because steel, industrial spare parts and all kinds of other things are much needed in the Eastern zone, especially after the stripping of Eastern Germany by the Russians at the earlier stage.

Mr. Lipson: In point of fact, is that not hurting the Germans rather than the Russians?

Mr. Macmillan: I am coming to that. I think it is not. I think the embargo is very effective. It is preventing the two-year plan and the rebuilding of Eastern Germany, and of the satellite States to some extent, for the purpose of strengthening the military power of Russia. But, of course, the embargo is much weakened because at the same time as we apply the embargo to the Eastern zone of Germany we have allowed ourselves to make a large number of trade agreements with the satellite States. That means that the same goods which we do not allow to go direct to Eastern Germany pass round the corner and come back from the satellite States to Russian control. Therefore, we have defeated the very purpose of the embargo.
At the same time, we are continuing to make reparations deliveries from Germany to Russia. Part of the Krupps plant—largely a military plant—is now


being taken to Russia and to Czechoslovakia. Of course, I know I shall be told, as we have been told before, that it was allocated by the reparations agreement of the Control Council. But when?—in 1945. Quite a lot has happened since 1945. I know I shall be told that there have been no further allocations since the beginning of the blockade in June, 1948. But why deliver the balance of what has already been allocated? Why should Russia, or Czechoslovakia under the control of Russia, receive this equipment? I remember that we used to talk about the wickedness of sending stuff to Japan and Italy before the war.

Mr. Platts-Mills: We did it just the same.

Mr. Macmillan: Certainly, but why do we repeat the same mistake now? Surely, we should have learned this lesson. Surely, we should still have some resources of diplomatic obstruction and evasion. Is there no technical hitch which can make it difficult to deliver the rest of these reparations and plants? We often speculate today on what Russia will do. What is the meaning of the recent changes? What Russia will do will always be uncertain and unpredictable, and I shall not speculate about the precise meaning of these changes—whether Mr. Molotov has been dismissed or promoted, whether he has become a kind of Lord President of the Council or whether he has become merely a kind of Chancellor of the Duchy. I do not even know what is the meaning of the promotion of Mr. Vyshinsky—that versatile Galician, ci-devant aristocrat, gifted lawyer, first-class chess player who was my agreeable companion in many wanderings in Italy during the war.

Mr. Solley: Fellow travellers.

Mr. Macmillan: I have no knowledge of these things, but I venture to prophecy what may happen. There is a very serious danger. It is not impossible that a kind of fake appeasement policy will be launched, especially in relation to Germany. I think this will take the form of offering to conclude a treaty with Germany involving the ending of the joint occupation by all the Powers. On the face of it, it is very attractive. It is very attractive to British opinion,

because we have to supply troops and spend large quantities of money. It is very attractive to American opinion, because they have to supply more troops and still more money. It would be very difficult for German opinion to resist, especially the statesmen who are now in the rather equivocal position in which German politicians find themselves in present conditions. Yet it is a fatal snare. It is, in my view, the kiss of death.
What would be the result? The result might well be that the gangster forces which have been built up during the last year in Eastern Germany under the officers and men of General von Paulus's army would do in Germany exactly what they have done in Czechoslovakia. At one single blow the Communist menace, both military and propaganda, would be on the Rhine. All the advantages which the Stalin-Ribbentrop pact momentarily gave those two Governments would be restored, and then we would have lost almost overnight the whole results of six years of war. The Ruhr itself, that great arsenal of power, would pass into enemy hands. This, above all, must be avoided. It is a trick which we cannot allow to be played upon us.
This leads me to the question of the Ruhr about which I wish to say a word. Under the trusteeship law the future ownership of the Ruhr industries is to be decided by the future German Government. I think we all feel that to be right. It is for the German people to say what form of ownership they want. But I shall say frankly that whether the industry is in private hands or in public hands is not really the problem. The problem is: what kind of German Government is going to be operated? If there is a nationalist government in Germany the industry will be just as much in their possession whether it is in private hands or in socialised hands. Therefore, some guarantees must be given. If we leave Germany, what guarantees are worth the paper on which they are written? What guarantees can the French and the other countries trust? There is no guarantee except to win over the soul of the German people to the side of Western Christian civilisation. That is the only guarantee.
If Germany enters the Western European system as a free and equal member, then the Ruhr can be subjected


to control, but not an invidious control imposed upon Germany alone, but exactly the same system of regulations as to planning, as to quantity and character of production as that which other countries would enter—Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, France, Italy, and even Britain. In these vital products, the very life-blood of war, we must internationalise the control. This is necessary and can be defended on economic grounds, but it is absolutely essential on security grounds. In my view it is only in the principle of United Europe and by its immediate objective of Western Union that this solution becomes both politically practicable and lasting. The Atlantic Pact is a guarantee against aggression, but a United Europe is an essential and complementary part of this great system of the alliance for freedom.
While on the subject of Germany there are one or two other questions which I should like to put and to which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reply. There are many baffling, immediate questions. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would tell us something about the German shipbuilding industry. Is it intended to maintain a permanent embargo on German shipbuilding? I realise the immense arguments on both sides of this problem. Again, I say that in terms of a nationalistic Europe they are insoluble. The only solution lies in a United Europe and a single economic plan.
In the same way, I hope we may be told something of the growth of the German constitution and the occupation statute. Why was Western Berlin not allowed to send representatives to Bonn? Have the three Powers been able yet to reach any agreement? I think the French have made great concessions, but they can make no more concessions unless the German problem is handled as a whole and as part of Europe and not piecemeal. There are some people who see a grave danger to the peace of the world in a revival of Nazi Germany. There are others who see perhaps an even greater danger in the forces of Communist Russia. But I think we would all agree that the gravest danger of all would be the combination of the two. Peace and safety can only be won by winning Germany to the West; only so can French, Dutch and Belgian fears be allayed. Just as

the policy which was proclaimed at Fulton was the foundation of peace and security, so the policy laid down at Zurich was the next stage in the building. For modern Europe, like ancient Greece, must achieve unity or perish.
I now pass to the second point which I have chosen in my attempt at this analysis—the Greek point; the Greek civil war. Here we have something really more than a cold war because it is a civil war, an armed war; it is an international war, something of the Spanish model where the protagonists are content for the moment to act as prompters behind the scenes and to leave the chief parts to the secondary characters in the drama. I regard the Greek position as very serious indeed, almost desperate. Much as I love Greece and great as is the regard which I have for many Greek friends, I feel it my duty to issue this solemn warning. It is the only way in which I can help to repay the debt which I personally and I think the whole British nation owes to the Greek people—the most lively, the toughest, the most gallant, occasionally the most exasperating, but always the most attractive people in Europe.
Greece has a population of about 7 million. In the last 10 years about 700,000 men of military age have died in battle or of famine. Nearly a million peasants have been driven from the villages and are living on relief. A very large number of children have been abducted by the rebels. At the moment the Greek Army takes about 200,000 men of military age out of industry, commerce and agriculture and still is not strong enough to end the war. If it were raised to 300,000 I still do not think it would end the war this summer. The rebels number about 25,000. In addition they have about 75,000 conscripted civilians. What a toll from the manhood of a small people! What an effect upon the economy of the country are the figures which I have given! Imagine them applied to our own country.
The war has dragged on year after year and the Army has not yet been able to finish it. The Greek Air Force has 40 Spitfires and a few reconnaissance planes which, I think, we have given them. They should have more. We sell jet engines to Russia and the satellite countries; I would rather give them to the Greeks.


We promised 30 Spitfires, in addition, to the Greeks. That was four months ago. They have not yet arrived. Why this delay? Do not Ministers realise that it is speed which is the absolutely essential thing today if we are to avoid disaster? In addition to Spitfires we should send them some light bombers. The Government have sold them to doubtful customers when we might just as well have given them to our Greek friends.
I must say this frankly, although it may offend some of my friends: there is no real co-ordination between the British and the Americans in Greece. There is very great goodwill and close consultation, but the system is absolutely wrong. I do not know whether the House knows what is the system. We maintain a British Military Mission which is responsible for the training of the Army. The Americans have a Military Mission which is responsible for the equipment and for what are called the logistics of the Army. They also advise upon operational tactics. What a hopeless and foolish dualism! That was not the way we recaptured Africa or organised A.F.H.Q. and S.H.A.E.F.—with two separate missions without a single command. Yet even with more equipment and even with a more intelligent Allied system I do not believe the Greek Army can succeed in clearing the country so long as the northern frontiers cannot be closed. It is the frontier problem which has baffled the Greeks over and over again.

Mr. Solley: And the spirit of the working class in Greece.

Mr. Macmillan: If I may give an analogy which I hope will not be misunderstood by my own countrymen, it is something like this. It would be like imagining the Duke of Cumberland after the '45 trying to secure the Hanoverian dynasty in Scotland and yet not being allowed to cross the Highland line. That is what the Greek Army is trying to do and it cannot be done.
If the Greek civil war is not ended this summer the Greek morale and the Greek Government may well collapse. If Greece collapses and goes behind the Iron Curtain two immediate results will follow. About the first, I wish the House to be careful. In the first place, Tito will be liquidated and Yugoslavia, which is now something of a running sore in

Moscow's side, will be made, from the Moscow point of view, healthy again and will become an asset to them and not a liability. Secondly, if Greece falls the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean flank is turned; the route to the Middle East through Suez becomes untenable and the effect on Turkey and Persia incalculable. In fact, we are back, strategically speaking, to the autumn of 1940. Therefore, Greece is really very important.
To be frank, both the British and American Governments have buried their heads in the sands during the last three years. We have deluded ourselves into thinking that we were not interfering in Greek affairs, but at the same time we have maintained troops there and poured out money in economic and military help. If that is not intervention I do not know what is. Because we did not help in the very first need in Greece, in the building of a sound administration and the rebuilding of the maximum international agreement, much of our effort has been wasted. Immediately after the revolution of the winter of 1944 we tried to add political advice and guidance to military and economic help. All our weight was thrown towards a policy of moderation and conciliation to units all non-Communist Greeks and to win over the waverers. That policy has been abandoned by this Government which succeeded us, and I believe that that has been a great error for which we shall have to pay a very heavy price.
The immediate need is to avoid disaster this summer. What can we do? One thing we can do with skill and imagination, and that is exploit the Yugoslavian situation. Moscow is exercising a double pressure on Belgrade, partly economic and partly political. We ought to give immediate economic assistance to Tito, but on two conditions. We can give him a lot which he must have if he is to survive—oil, capital plant, and so forth. He must do two things in return. I do not care very much whether his Communism is orthodox or schismatic. What I want him to do is close the Greek frontier. He must close the frontier. And he must bring pressure on Albania that defies us—Albania about whom we go to the International Court at The Hague, although Hoxha goes to Moscow this week, I see. The Yugoslavian hand


must be played firmly and with finesse, but, above all, swiftly, for time is not on our side.
Apart from this economic pressure, I believe that Moscow plans a political coup quite shortly which could ultimately destroy Tito's opposition and destroy Greece, and that is a plot to create the so-called Macedonian Federation under Bulgarian leadership. I think that is, perhaps, the reason why some of the Communists who are still loyal Greeks have turned against the movement. It may even be the reason for the disappearance of General Markos. In any event, this scheme, if successful, would achieve at a single blow three objects—the liquidation of Tito, the collapse of Greece, and the discomfiture of Britain and America. The Bulgarians, as the right hon. Gentleman told us the other day, are openly flouting the terms of the Peace Treaty. They have disregarded all the obligations imposed upon them. They are giving support to the Greek rebels. The British and American Governments should now issue a solemn warning that they will not tolerate any further Bulgarian interference in Greek affairs, whether concealed or overt, and the Russians should be warned that they will be held responsible for Bulgaria's actions.
There remains the last point I wish to raise, of which I gave the right hon. Gentleman notice—the problem of our trade relations with the satellite countries. However, the House has been so patient with me; and I must thank hon. Members who, I quite understand, find many of these things wounding to their views, for listening with patience; and so I shall not go into the details of this matter after all, but shall leave them for hon. Friends of mine who follow in the Debate. I content myself with saying that I do not believe that we can cajole or wheedle the present Governments of those satellite countries by economic benefits. With Communists, we cannot say it with flowers.

Mr. Platts-Mills: What about the Marshall Plan?

Mr. Macmillan: What we have to do is to judge whether in these agreements we gain more in our own strength by what we receive or whether we give more to theirs than we gain in return. That is what we must judge. Since we give

almost entirely capital goods—and some of them goods of great potential military value—and since we take in return almost entirely consumer goods, I say, Be careful. Do not give away guns in order to get butter. Go elsewhere. Go to the Dominions. Go to the Empire. Go to the Colonies. Go to Western Europe. Make the world on our side of the Iron Curtain a demonstrably better place to live in, and then ultimately the news of this success will filter through. Then, when the time is ripe, the forces of resistance may yet come into play. I suppose that we have not forgotten all that we knew about the art of resistance, to the development of which during the war we directed so much skill and so much valour. But let us warn our friends in those countries against treachery. Let them not be tricked into a false move. I hope that the Government have that always in mind.
To sum up. The cold war must be fought with as much energy and single-mindedness; as the shooting war. The danger spots must be watched and dealt with. All the resources at our disposal must be used. Above all, the political structures must be created in the non-Communist world, either through the Atlantic Pact or United Europe, in the Old World and in the New, which will organise resistance by organising unity. But let us not despair, for the forces against us will, in my view, prove, if challenged with courage, to be less formidable than they appear on the surface. We cannot believe in anything except the final triumph of democracy and freedom. I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on the great forward step of the Atlantic Pact. If he has been a little petty and ungenerous towards my right hon. Friend, we certainly do not propose to return it.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Nonsense.

Mr. Macmillan: The right hon. Gentleman was not in his place when I developed this matter earlier, so it is of no use for him to say "nonsense" now.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Bevin: Do not be so petty.

Mr. Macmillan: The right hon. Gentleman was not here before, and did not hear what I was saying, and I do not


propose to withdraw. We welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has done. While we may differ on many points of internal politics and on points of methods, with very few exceptions in this House we remain united in purpose. Above all, therefore, let there be no weakness, no hesitation, no appeasement. Step by step the cold war must be won. If the way be long and weary, let us have courage and faith. For this is no ordinary journey that we must travel together. It is a pilgrimage. It is, perhaps, the last Crusade.

4.17 p.m.

The Minister of State (Mr. McNeil): It may perhaps be for the convenience of the House if I intervene now to deal with some of the points that have been made. Dealing first with Germany, I think it may be tidier to leave the major points concerning the statute and the conversations at Bonn to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the close of the Debate. I should like to say to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), in defence of my right hon. Friend, that the right hon. Gentleman is rhetorical and unjust when he suggests that the Secretary of State has behaved in any petty fashion towards the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. H. Macmillan: May I, then, ask the right hon. Gentleman two simple questions? Why were not the Government represented at The Hague Conference? And why was it that, at the opening of the meeting of the United Europe Congress, every ambassador, including the Papal Nuncio, was in his place except the British Ambassador.

Mr. McNeil: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was complaining in the body of his speech rather that we did not give full weight to the declarations made at Fulton and Zurich. I thought he was claiming for the Leader of the Opposition full credit for the stage we have now arrived at, and criticising the Government for their action. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the questions."] I shall attempt to answer in my own way. The right hon. Gentleman now shakes his head, but he did say that. He attempted to obtain full credit for this position.
It is true that we were cautious about Berlin; it is true that we were cautious

when the Fulton speech was made; but is it to be counted an offence that we sought to exploit every means which diplomacy and international conferences afforded before we came to the regretful conclusion that co-operation was not being offered to us? What should we have done in Berlin? The right hon. Gentleman criticised our attitude. He complained that we wrangled about the currency when everyone knew that currency was merely an excuse and not a reason. Naturally His Majesty's Government knew that. If any Power wanted to discuss this subject with the United Nations in the hope that a settlement might be reached, we surely had an obligation to accept that opportunity, to offer plans and to examine plans proposed by other countries.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he wondered if it would be decided afterwards that we were right to institute the air lift in mid-summer of last year. The inference was quite plain. He said—I think in an aside—that he thought that there would not have been war if we had adopted other methods. I am sure that he will not claim that any Government have a right to base their policy upon the speculation of what the other fellow on the other side will do. [HON. MEMBERS: "What else can one do?"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite ask "What does one do?"

Mr. Molson: What else can one do but base one's policy on speculation on what the other fellow will do?

Mr. McNeil: One attempts to base one's policy on the fullest intelligence available to one. One attempts to exhaust every other method before one commits oneself to a method from which there is no withdrawal. Is 1938 offered as an example of how a Government should conduct its policy? The difference between 1938 and the present day is that we do not ask anyone else to carry the burdens that are properly our own. [Interruption.] I made it plain that I was indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the care with which he addressed himself to almost every aspect of his speech. In these circumstances, we are reluctant to enter into a party Debate on the subject; but if the right hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friend seek to taunt us too far, there are replies


that we can properly make, and we might make them if we were not so careful of our responsibilities. [HON. MEMBERS: "What does that mean?"] I think that a little thought will convince hon. Gentlemen that the meaning is not ambiguous.
I want to address myself to some of the points which the right hon. Gentleman made about Greece, about our trading policy, and about the position of the satellite countries in relation to the conduct of the cold war. The right hon. Gentleman advised us that we must play our hand firmly but with finesse in relation to Yugoslavia. I am sure that that is very good advice. I am not certain, however, that we would be displaying our finesse or, perhaps, not even much justice towards Yugoslavia, if we adopted the methods that he commended to us. The position of Tito is, of course, of great importance to us. The right hon. Gentleman may be assured that we will look carefully at each nuance in this situation; but we should not obviously at any time place additional embarrassment in the way of the Yugoslav Government in their present situation. I am not quarrelling with the objective here, but I am suggesting—

Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: Tito is not for sale.

Mr. McNeil: I think that the hon. Member is quite right. He is fully entitled to make that interruption, and the proof that Tito is not for sale lies in the fact that he stood up to those who sought to be his economic masters.

Mr. Kirkwood: Hear, hear.

Mr. McNeil: If my Scottish colleague the right hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) will forgive me for not looking round, may I say that I was not at all surprised at his interruption? It is true that the most ruthless economic methods have been employed against Tito by the Soviet Government, by the Government of Poland and by the Government of Albania, such as it may be. In a time of expanding trade, the volume of trade between Russia and Yugoslavia has been cut to one-tenth in the current period, the trade between Poland and Yugoslavia cut to one-quarter in the same period, and the bombastic bleating of Albania

has attempted to prove that in her economic behaviour she has more righteousness than any other member of the Cominform. It is precisely because Tito is not for sale, that we must be very careful in our attitude towards him or the pressures which we may seek to place upon him.
I would not disagree with the general estimation that the right hon. Gentleman has made of the Greek situation. It is grave indeed, but there is some evidence of recovery, which I should be most careful not to exaggerate, but which I think should be noted. At a time when Greece is confronted with a systematic, foreign-sponsored, foreign-aided rebellion against her, some recovery is taking place in that country. We give some assistance, but, of course, the maximum credit should go to the Government of the United States for the material and technical help which is making this possible at this time; at a time, when, as the right hon. Gentleman explained, perhaps one million refugees in addition to the Armed Forces are being driven out of the Greek economy.
I wondered if I could pick out instances of this recovery, because it is not at all easy to measure recovery when the Greek currency is grossly inflated and continues to vary almost from day to day. But over the last six months 60 railway bridges have been built, the reconstruction of the Aegean port of Volos has been completed, and I was particularly struck by the increase in merchant tonnage, which in December, 1946, stood at about 500,000 tons, and which today is 1,300,000 tons, and a comparable tonnage, Greek-owned but under foreign flags, should be added to get a complete picture.
This recovery is taking place, not only in the face of the adverse military and economic factors to which the right hon. Gentleman drew our attention, but when part of the rebel force is being systematically deployed against the raw materials of recovery. When I hear this almost negligible minority who, in this House and elsewhere, pose as the saviours of the Greek people, I often want them to try to explain away the type of operation that these rebel forces undertake. I noticed that in a recent attack on Karpenisi the rebels, of course, looted food, bank notes and clothing; all that one can


understand, even if one does not justify the attack. But when one also finds that quite clearly sectors of the force had been told off to deal with reconstruction offices, with timber saw-mills, and even with raw materials assembled to provide elementary housing for refugees, one can appreciate just how magnificent is this effort of Greek recovery in the face of these factors. I make it plain that I must take care not to magnify the physical proportions of these evidences of recovery; but there is an effort which is substantial from the psychological and the political viewpoint.
Naturally, the general situation will continue to depend primarily upon the success of the Greek Government in retaining the confidence of their people and proceeding against the foreign-aided rebel forces. Here again I think the House can take a little comfort. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was a little unjust in suggesting that there was disharmony between the different missions. There is a co-ordination of these missions. I think he made a good point, though; I do not deny that there is not as close co-ordination as between the missions which he himself saw at work, perhaps even in that area; but we have little evidence of conflict. Indeed, a year ago, not on our initiative, there was consideration of whether there could be more effective co-operation. But at present, as he said, the United Kingdom Mission is responsible for training and organisation, while the United States Mission is responsible for equipment and operational advice. It is not an illogical arrangement, and it has been working adequately up to the present.
I want to say that at present the Government are having some success in their operations against the rebels. The new Commander-in-Chief, General Papagos, who, as many hon. Members will remember, distinguished himself in the Albanian campaign, has brought a quality of leadership to his forces, and is reconstructing discipline. There seems to be no tenderness about the politics of the soldier. We have seen recently one well-known Royalist figure subjected to exactly the same processes of discipline as men drawn from the other parties. Of the Pelopponese we have just had a report which suggests that this operation has

been a very considerable success. We are told that there are now in that area only some 300 bandits in small gangs, and that within a reasonable time the struggle will be reduced to police operations.
I also want to draw attention to a feature about which the right hon. Gentleman spoke: the rift in the rebel ranks between the Communists who remember that they are Greeks and the other Communists who take their directions exclusively from outside Greece. It has, of course, given great encouragement to the people of Greece, and I should think to their friends everywhere. The directive issued on 1st March defining this grouping of the three Macedonian areas under Bulgarian sponsorship discloses starkly what we have always contended: that the primary aim of this rebellion was not on behalf of any section of the Greek people at all but was directed primarily to the weakening and eventually, the dismemberment of Greece. It reveals just how hypocritical the Cominform propaganda has been, and hon. Gentlemen who are moved by, and no doubt react sincerely to, some of these Cominform statements, should keep this kind of hypocritical contradiction firmly in mind when they come to make judgments upon other aspects of the same propaganda policy.
I have no doubt that, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it was resistance to this same theme that brought about the disappearance of Markos. I think that for the first time since he occupied the post he displayed independent thought, and possibly for the first time displayed the kind of thinking that I know the right hon. Gentleman would expect from his Greek friends, and for that reason Markos was no longer of any use to these foreign-directed forces, and he disappeared.
The contradiction's in Communist thinking, and this disregard of realities that we might describe as nationalist feeling, are not new. We have seen these contradictions in other facets of Cominform propaganda—the contradiction between the directives to Communists in Italy and Yugoslavia, and between the directives to those in France and Germany. The general conclusion that we must derive from all these circumstances is that, wherever the loyalties of


a classical Communist are in conflict between the Cominform and his home, between the Cominform and his Church, between the Cominform and his union, between the Cominform and his nation, or between the Cominform and any loyalty or obligation he may previously have accepted, his loyalty to the Cominform must prevail or he is discarded and repudiated. This strange piece of gaucherie in Cominform propaganda has been exploited. A number of Greek Communists of a fair degree of prominence have recanted, and their recantations have been made use of by the Greek people and the Greek propaganda instrument in their appeals to the doubters that obviously exist inside the rebel ranks.
If I draw attention to these minor successes, I do not want in any way to detract from the importance of the picture the right hon. Gentleman drew, nor attempt to diminish the gravity of the situation. He did not ask precisely what our plans were in the rôle we occupy in relation to the Greek Government and their treatment of these rebel forces. I want to say to the House, however, that if I were in possession of details it would be improper for me to give them. But the House may be assured that the campaign against these foreign-sponsored rebel forces will not be diminished nor confined to the methods that have been previously employed. My right hon. Friend has this as one of the subjects upon the agenda for his conversations with Mr. Dean Acheson in Washington.
The right hon. Gentleman went to some lengths to display an apparent contradiction between our diplomatic attitude and our trade policy towards the Eastern zone of Germany and countries of Eastern Europe. I do not think that that is strictly accurate. For Governments and politicians, as the right hon. Gentleman very well knows, there are rarely simple blacks and whites; there are more often competing necessities and competing obligations.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Does that apply to Spain?

Mr. McNeil: No. Our attitude in regard to Spain is quite plain. We have an overriding obligation as a member of the

United Nations. We have sought to influence the United Nations against the course they subsequently adopted, but, the decision having been made, we have tried to discharge our part of that decision.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Are we interfering with the internal affairs of foreign nations?

Mr. McNeil: The hon. and gallant Member should not be so excited. We have not done so. We have taken our part in discharging the resolution of the United Nations. If the hon. and gallant Member can prove that the decision of the United Nations is ultra vires or incompetent, perhaps he will display that to us.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Had it no effect in withdrawing our ambassador from Spain?

Mr. McNeil: That is a different question which I am prepared to discuss. I would not necessarily disagree with the hon. and gallant Member, but there is a resolution to which we have acceded.
To return to the subject of trade, we have, for example, an almost over-riding obligation as a Member of O.E.E.C. The right hon. Gentleman has displayed his concern for the re-development, integration and unification of Europe. Here is one instrument that is really at work which does a little more than speeches about the re-development and unity of Europe. As a member of that organisation we have to discharge our part in the four-year plan, an essential element of which is the development of East-West trade as a primary factor in economic recovery.
The right hon. Gentleman advised us to go to the Commonwealth countries and to our Colonies in an attempt to get alternative sources of supply. I am very grateful for the advice. It is a great pity that his own party did not listen much earlier to the right hon. Gentleman on this subject. I concede that the right hon. Gentleman has been consistent in this subject, but his party has not always displayed such consistency. We do what we can in the Colonies and in the Commonwealth, and our policy in relation to Eastern Europe does not prejudice any commercial trade relationships we have with our Commonwealth countries. The advantages of this development of East-West trade are so plain that they scarcely


need stating. I do not pretend that we have no restrictions to our East-West trade. I should not expect the House to forgive us if we did not take into account such considerations as security and strategy. We have an export licence system, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade told the House on 15th February that we should shortly be bringing under control a new range of goods of potential strategic value. That we must do to discharge one of our primary obligations in relation to security. We are satisfied that this will not conflict with our obligations as a member of O.E.E.C. or stifle our trade with Eastern Europe.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The announcement was made on 15th February. Has it now come into force?

Mr. McNeil: I am doubtful about my law. I know that a list has been prepared, but since it comes under a delegated instrument, I should hesitate to give a reply off-hand as to whether it is operative or not. The right hon. Gentleman can be assured that if there is any delay it is a delay due to adjustments of detail and not to any deviation from the principle announced. Members, particularly Members of the minority which I occasionally find behind me and far to my right, must not confuse strategic and security considerations with using trade weapons for political discrimination. We do not do that. The right hon. Gentleman offered us some advice on the subject. He said that each case should be considered on its merits, and that if one decided there was more to be got out of it from a trade point of view, then it should be accepted. That is our attitude, subject to the qualifications I have made. We do not employ that as a political weapon. If we wanted to have models of how to employ trade discrimination as a political weapon, we have the example to which I have already drawn the attention of the House, but which did not seem fully to absorb the attention of those Members I find to my right and behind me.

Mr. Chamberlain: Would my right hon. Friend say to whom he is referring?

Mr. McNeil: I except completely my hon. Friend. I was trying to make the point rather laboriously that some of the

people who attach labels to themselves, like "ultra-Leftists," are frequently the people who are most reactionary in their attitude to the methods used by other Governments.
One other suggestion I should like to try to dismiss is that there is a conflict between that policy and our attitude to the satellite countries in relation to the Peace Treaties. I do not think there is a contradiction; I think the trade policy was explained and justified in the terms which the right hon. Gentleman opposite used. It ought to be plain to the House that our attitude to these Peace Treaties is quite justifiable, and not in contradiction. I sometimes regret that it is made to appear as if we sought to exert rights in relation to these Peace Treaties. It is not rights that we seek; we seek rather to discharge our obligation as signatories to the treaties.
The clauses in the treaties relating to human rights and to military restrictions were not idly written into the treaties. They were written in by a conference, which included Soviet Russia, because the Powers considered that they were essential to the maintenance of international understanding and to the creation of conditions of peace. Such rights as equal rights in the courts of justice, the defence and toleration of an opposition, tolerance of differing viewpoints and the establishment and maintenance of a free Press—these, we thought, were factors essential to cordial relations and to international understanding.
We have the continued obligation to seek to honour our signature by invoking the relevant parts of these treaties. I do not pretend that the conception of publicity is completely absent from our behaviour in relation to these treaties. Why should I? Why should I apologise? Why should it be a complete "write-off" of our efforts to suggest that there is an attempt at propaganda in our attitude? We have a duty to encourage groups of men and women who struggle, in their countries, to keep alive the very thought of liberty, even an obligation to persuade miserable and mistaken Governments that the conscience of the world on these subjects is still awake and that public opinion, at any rate, will not tolerate such abuses without protest. Perhaps irrelevantly, may I be permitted to draw the attention of the House to a most extraordinary statement said to have been


made this week by Madame Kuzmenko, a Russian woman touring Great Britain. I am certain that we are all delighted to see her. I wish we had reciprocal rights of this kind to visit Soviet Russia. If we had, my hopes would rise. But this woman is reported to have said:
The Government is elected by the people and prisons do exist to re-educate people and make them understand that they are wrong to go against the people's Government.
One can see a steady deterioration in the statement, but the most surprising thing is yet to come:
Those who are against the majority, of course we must punish.
That is so completely alien to our thinking that one does not know whether to burst out laughing or to be horrified, yet I have scarcely any doubt that, if this lady has been correctly reported, that is what she did mean.

Mrs. Leah Manning: What she said was about a peace-loving people.

Mr. McNeil: I should be upset if I had to differ from my dear and hon. Friend on this subject, but what I am trying to say is that so long as this kind of thinking is permitted undisturbed and unprotected against, it is a danger.

Mr. S. Silverman: Have not we a law of sedition, too?

Mr. McNeil: I suggest that even my hon. Friend, with all his legal capacity, is confused. He is now associating sedition with punishing those who are against the majority.

Mr. Silverman: My right hon. Friend's statement is, I think, clear and defensible, but is he not making heavy weather, in a diplomatic argument of this kind, out of a casual reply by a non-professional person in a language which is not her own?

Mr. McNeil: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am not trying to make a party point. If I thought that that was an isolated case, I would scarcely have bothered to quote it. But my belief is that when I meet representatives of some of the Governments with whom I have to attempt to deal, this actually represents their sincere thinking. Moreover—and this is a disturbing element; I hope my hon. Friend will believe me—

they are absolutely surprised that anyone should react in any other way than by agreement. This is a danger to world peace—no, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it is certainly a great impediment to cordial relations between the Western and Eastern nations today, apart from active governmental action. We find ourselves not only talking a different language, but thinking on a different plane and in different terms.
I have been asked what further steps we should take. I have tried to explain to the House the new devices in the treaties which are open to us. I do not want to pretend that these weapons are fierce or formidable. They are, in many ways, rather frail things, but I believe that if His Majesty's Government can continue to direct attention to these abuses, to these indignities, to these injustices, to these breaches of the treaties, we shall be doing international peace a service. Even those Governments must eventually be persuaded that their actions and statements should be re-examined if they find that almost the whole world recoils, if not in repugnance then in bewilderment, at their activities and statements. We shall, at any rate, continue to do everything that lies in our power to see that these essential elements in the treaties are observed as thoroughly as we have power to make them be observed.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: I have listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I was particularly glad to hear that, whatever some of his hon. Friends may think, he at any rate is not in favour of punishing those who happen to be against the majority. That is most reassuring. I was also glad to hear his sympathetic references to the Greek Government and his disapproving references to the Greek Communist guerrillas. But I still could not help wondering if he had paid quite sufficient heed to the most eloquent appeal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), who opened the Debate, and whether he is really aware of the extreme urgency of the situation in Greece.
I have given a certain amount of thought during the past six years or so to the situation in the Balkans, and I have never known a moment when it


seemed more critical. There are two reasons for urgency. One in Greece it-self. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, war of one kind or another has been raging in that unfortunate country for nearly 10 years. Its effects have been disastrous both economically and politically and it is hard to see how, if it goes on much longer, there will be any hope left of recovery or of achieving political stability. If we do not hurry there will be nothing left to save. The other reason for urgency is the situation in the Balkans as a whole. At the present moment, if one looks at the map of the Balkans—and people are inclined not to look at maps as much as they might—it will be seen that democracy still has very considerable assets there.
Greece can still be regarded as an asset. On the south-east there is Turkey, a loyal ally of the West. On the Adriatic side, we should be justified in putting at any rate a question mark on Yugoslavia. My former associate, Marshal Tito, is not, on the whole, a very popular figure. He has lost some of his friends, and I do not know that he has yet made many new ones. In fact, I do not know at the moment who dislikes him most, some of my hon. Friends on this side or the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). But the question of whether one likes him or not, or agrees with his system of government, is neither here nor there. For the purpose of our political map, the important question is whether a country is bound hand and foot to Moscow or whether it is showing some degree of independence.
Now, it may be argued that Tito is a Communist, and, of course, nobody is more insistent on that than the Marshal himself. He keeps on saying that in his little dispute with the Kremlin he is right and the Kremlin is wrong. But that in itself gives the whole show away. Because when a Communist starts saying that he is right and the Kremlin is wrong then he ceases to be a proper Communist. For instance, if the hon. Member for West Fife were to start saying that sort of thing, I should begin to feel that even he was showing signs of deviation.

Mr. Gallacher: It is quite possible that the Member for West Fife could have differences with the people at the Kremlin, but he would never make

divisions in the face of the capitalist enemy either in this country or in America. He will stand by his fellow workers in whatever country against the capitalists. There will never be any question of that, so far as the hon. Member for West Fife is concerned.

Mr. Maclean: I am very glad to be reassured. I was afraid that the hon. Member was going to let himself be led into making a diversionist statement of some kind or another.
To continue my argument, the decision as to whether someone is or is not a Communist does not rest with that person. It rests with one authority only, and that is the Kremlin. And the Kremlin keep on saying that Marshal Tito is not a Communist but a Turkish grandee, which is an extremely wounding expression.

Mr. Gallacher: I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman earlier and so upset his argument, but I should like now to say that he was talking about how disappointed he was that the Minister of State had not said something definite about assisting Greece. Is he aware that the Minister of State has put in writing—I have it here—that if the Greeks get arms, it will not be from Britain?

Mr. Maclean: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman for West Fife will read out the exact quotation.

Mr. Gallacher: Very well.
For this purpose he"—
that is Plastiras—
needs 40 divisions. Where they will come from I do not know, but I do know one place from which arms will not come—Britain.
That is not the "Daily Worker" speaking, but the Minister of State.

Mr. Maclean: To return to Yugoslavia, I still feel that in spite of the interesting remarks of the hon. Member for West Fife the only authority which can decide whether he or anybody else is a Communist is the Kremlin, and in the present case the Kremlin have decided that Marshal Tito, for whom they have no longer any liking, is not a Communist.
Now, we in this country are not as fussy as the Kremlin about the internal affairs of other countries. We do not care very much whether they are ruled


by Turkish grandees or not. Of course, we should be delighted to see Yugoslavia enjoying the blessings of a political system exactly like our own, with a smoking room and a Members' dining room which costs the taxpayers ten or twenty thousand pounds a year, but I do not think that would be easy. The old Yugoslav Parliament had to be closed down some 20 years ago because there was so much shooting across the floor of the House.
But we do not insist, as the Kremlin insists, on absolute conformity to a certain type of government. We do not insist that a country should take orders from us. All we ask is that they should not take orders on every point from some other country; all we ask is that they should show some degree of independence. And that is exactly what Tito is doing at the present moment. He is showing some degree of independence, and so long as he continues to do that we shall be justified in putting at any rate a question mark on the map of Yugoslavia. But the question is how long shall we be justified in doing that? How long will it last? How long will Tito last? How long will Greece last?
Those two questions are very closely linked. Until recently Tito may have thought that it was in his interest to see Greece a Soviet satellite. Now it is quite certainly not in his interest. If he goes on helping the Soviet-controlled guerrillas on his southern border then he will be doing himself a great disservice, because one of the duties of those guerrillas, if ever they can establish themselves in power, will be to add pressure to that which is already being exerted on Yugoslavia from two other sides.
Already the Soviet plans for thus changing the position in Moscow's favour are, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, taking shape. They are in the capable hands of no less a person than the former Secretary-General of the Communist International, Mr. Dimitrov, and they take the form of a so-called independent State of Macedonia, which will be established under Bulgarian, or rather under Soviet, control. This would, of course, serve as a base for Soviet operations on as large a scale as necessary against Greece and Yugoslavia, which would end, if they were successful, with the liquidation of Tito. What is more, such a base

would be linked with the existing Soviet base in Albania, and would greatly strengthen it. A glance at the map shows what a great difference it would make to the whole situation in the Balkans if an independent Macedonia were established stretching from Skolpje in Yugoslavia down to Salonika, and bordering on Albania.
Now, if we let that happen it will not be very long before instead of having half the Balkans potentially on our side we find the whole of the Balkans welded into a solid Soviet-dominated bloc, bitterly hostile to us. Then, as my right hon. Friend said, we should be back to 1940. It would be a serious defeat in the cold war. And all that is likely to happen within the next few months. Already we hear of a meeting of the National Liberation Front of Macedonia this month. The Russians are evidently determined not to waste any time.
What we must do to avoid this disaster is to clear up the situation in Greece once and for all without delay. I personally should be glad to see the Western Powers afford actual armed assistance to the Greek Government. After all, the situation in Greece is the kind foreseen under Article 4 of the Atlantic Pact, and we have got to get accustomed to the idea of giving effective help to small countries which are subjected to that kind of pressure, and goodness knows Greece has been subjected to that kind of pressure long enough. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite recently made a great fuss because a Greek decoration had been awarded to a British N.C.O. I should like to see more opportunities afforded to British N.C.O.s to win Greek decorations.

Mr. Gallacher: And see a lot of British boys killed over there.

Mr. Maclean: The Greek Government, it appears, are short of aircraft. We are doing very little to help them in that respect. I know to my cost what a devastating effect aircraft can have on irregular troops. If the R.A.F. have any aircraft, even out-dated types, let them send them to Greece. It is better than selling them to Soviet satellites; it is better than selling them to bogus cinema companies or leaving them about for people to steal.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is the hon. Member's proposal that we should send conscripts from this country to take part in the war in Greece?

Mr. Maclean: I think it would be preferable to send Regular troops, but if we have not enough Regular troops we should send conscripts. That would be better than sending no troops at all, and letting events take their course.
Another thing which I would like to see us do is to afford economic assistance to Marshall Tito to help him to resist the pressure to which he is now being subjected by his former allies. But, if we are to help him, and I am all for doing so, let us make it a condition that he maintains at any rate strict neutrality as regards Greece. I quite agree with the Minister of State that Tito's position is not an easy one, but he will not make it any easier by building up a potential enemy on his southern border. I know Marshal Tito well, and I have no hesitation in saying that he is enough of a realist to know that.
Finally, following upon what my right hon. Friend said, I would like to see some kind of action—blockade or whatever may be most convenient—taken against Albania as retaliation for the lives of 40 British sailors blown up by the Albanians, and for their constant intervention in Greece. But, if increased help is to do any good it must be given at once. We cannot afford to wait. If it is given at once, it will save Greece while there is still something left to save. It will show Tito that we mean business, and encourage him to maintain his all too precarious independence. And it will also show the Russians and their Communist hangers-on that we mean business both in Eastern Europe and everywhere else.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. S. N. Evans: From the discussion we have had upon Marshal Tito this afternoon, we can be sure that Marshal Tito now knows that Russia treats her satellites, as the 16th century Spaniards treated the Incas of Peru. Having just completed a 36 days' joust on the Iron and Steel Committee with the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. Macmillan) and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser), I should very much like to continue the process because

I have got into form, but this is not the occasion to do so. We are the trustees of a thousand years of history mainly because in times of crisis, Britain and her leaders have always chosen to be Britons first and politicians afterwards.
Before I come to my general argument, I would recall that the Foreign Secretary is leaving for America this week. I should like to pay a tribute to him as the principal European architect of Marshall Aid, Western Union, and the Atlantic Defence Pact. The right hon. Gentleman had assured himself of an honourable place in working-class archives before he came to this House. In my view, his work for humanity and for the common man over the past three and a half years now assures him of a great historical future. For three and a half years, the Foreign Secretary's faith in the people he serves has stood out in challenge to a Europe threatened by moral acrobats, who seek to prove that autocracy is a higher form of democracy and political murder a necessary incident in the evolution of human freedom.
I suggest that the present religious persecution in Europe presents one undeniable feature, and that is that under totalitarianism the more things change, the more they remain as they were. Just as there is more tyranny and less freedom in Russia today than there were in the days of the Czars so, in Russia's new European protectorates there is more brutality and more treachery than there were in the days of the Nazis. Marshal Tito can now testify how Russia treats her satellites. I have to add that, behind the Iron Curtain, culture, science, and the humanities have to bow the knee to the needs of totalitarian propaganda. Darkness at noon now threatens from Vladivostock to Le Havre, and it has to be said that the assurance of Canterbury's perambulating prelate that Stalin is photogenic, does nothing to make the police State appear less evil. It is the crowning indictment of Russian imperialism that the political standards of Europe today, that is in 1949, are immensely lower than they were in 1849. The rule of Francis Joseph even at its worst was moderate compared with what is happening all over the former Austrian Empire at this moment. This is in some ways an ironical situation because to 95 per cent. of those who march behind


Communist bands and banners in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw the finest sight in all the world would be the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour.
A word of warning should be utttered. Those Poles, Czechs and Hungarians will one day burst forth in violent fury and we shall then see, not a fifth column in Europe, but the other four columns, all on the side of freedom. If anybody wants to know what I mean by freedom, let me say that I mean freedom for the man who differs from me. It may be a poor consolation to those who are exiled from their homeland but it remains true that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. There can be no doubt that it was the rape of Czechoslovakia which galvanised the free world into action. There is a lesson to he learned from this for a Western civilisation based on Christianity and the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Czechoslovakia could have been saved, but a heavy price had to be paid. That price was 1,500 dead in the streets of Prague. I make no criticism, because we in this House, in the five years that preceded the recent war, had much to be ashamed of. We said that the price that had to be paid was excessive.
The important lesson that the whole world must learn from the tragic episode of Czechoslovakia is that Social Democrats cannot do a deal with Communist hierarchies because they greet you with one hand and strangle you with the other. Freedom has spoken down the ages in many languages; there can be no doubt that the one she knows best today is English, and that, of course, is something that Germany and Western Europe are rapidly coming to understand. Just as America grew to manhood under the watchful and benevolent eye of the British Navy, so today Britain and Western Europe are being enabled to recover their economic and political sea-legs because of the assistance that is crossing the Atlantic—because of American support. It is very important that all hon. Members on these benches should understand that without that support, Britain had no chance of restoring her financial independence and self-respect. It is due to America that we should make that acknowledgment.
Marshall Aid, Western Union, and the Atlantic Defence Pact herald the twilight

of Communism in Western Europe and a resurgence of Social Democracy. There can be no doubt that the one thing that would have tempted the Russians to further aggression—let us not forget that their troops manned nine-tenths of Czechoslovakia's frontiers and that that was the dominating factor in the Czechoslovakian episode—was the belief that Western Europe as a whole was as unready and unwilling to resist as the non-Communist parties were in Czechoslovakia. Happily that belief can no longer exist. Russian policy, malignantly inspired and malevolent in operation, now comes up against the hard rock of Western determination. It is as well to recognise that restraint on Russian action comes not from any humanitarian motive—far from it—but from the Politburo's realisation that aggression means atomic war. That is the only thing keeping the peace of Europe at this moment. The price of that war would, of course, be particularly heavy for the Russians.
I promised not to be too long, but I must touch upon the subject of Germany. There must now be a policy of reconciliation with defeated Germany. Seventy million people cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of a few men. I have never accepted the concept of a guilty nation, and I never shall. I have fought against the Germans, I have worked with the Germans and I have played with the Germans, and I have never been able to see any difference between the Black Country foundry worker and his Dusseldorf counterpart other than that of language, or any difference between the Ruhr coalminer and his South Wales or Northumberland counterpart other than that of language. I do not accept the concept of a guilty nation, and I say that the time is over-ripe for reconciliation. Within Western Union, Western Germany has a very important rôle to fulfil, and I believe that the time has come to bury the dead past.
Despite the deplorable condition of international relationships, happily there is nothing with which we need reproach ourselves. Never before in history have senior partners in a war coalition made such sacrifices to the end that that wartime co-operation between allies should be carried over into the peace. Never before in history have war-time partners together made such sacrifices as Britain and America have done.

Mr. Gallacher: Nonsense.

Mr. Evans: The trouble is that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) reads so much nonsense in the paper with which he is associated that he can only think in terms of nonsense.

Mr. Gallacher: It is the best and cleanest paper in the country.

Mr. Evans: That is one for the book. I suggest to the House and to the country that only one construction can be put on the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), with his birth, his breeding, his knowledge of history, his knowledge of the needs of British foreign policy and with the Marlborough tradition in him, agreed to the nonsensical Berlin arrangement whereby we can neither feed and clothe our occupying Armed Forces nor feed and sustain 2,500,000 Berliners without traversing an 120-mile corridor dominated on both sides by always potentially hostile forces. The only explanation of which it is capable is that Britain and America were determined to lean over backwards in order to convince the Russians that there was nothing to be feared from them, and, indeed, that we deliberately and of set policy placed ourselves in the position of hostages.
Lots of things are said from these benches about the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford. No one could differ from him more than I do on home affairs and on British economic and financial policy, but in other matters the right hon. Gentleman needs no defence from me. It is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman and his American counterpart were determined to go to almost any lengths in order to convince the Russians that there was nothing to be feared from us and that the one thing we wanted above everything else was that the war-time collaboration should continue in peace. I believe that is why we put ourselves in the position of hostages in Berlin.
Unhappily, "whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad," and appeasement was taken for weakness. We wanted peace in 1939, but not at the price of Hitler's kind of world. We want peace now, but not at the price of Molotov's kind of world. As Molotov repeatedly proclaims that his kind of world is imcompatible with the survival of our kind,

a choice had to be made. One Munich in a lifetime is sufficient. If I read the signs aright, Britain, Western Europe and the United States have now decided that it is better to die fighting for freedom than to live by obsequious poltroonery.

5.38 p.m.

Sir Arthur Salter: I found a great deal to admire in the speech of the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) and very little indeed with which I should want to quarrel, although I should perhaps have used one or two qualifying phrases with regard to some parts of his speech.
I ought, perhaps, to apologise to the House if I rather break the course of the Debate by talking about a subject which is less controversial than any which has yet been discussed This subject is, however, of great importance and, if not properly handled, it may frustrate many of our policies in Germany. It is the position of the refugees in West Germany. I do not know whether the House realises the full magnitude of the problem. In the American and British zones at present the total population is about 35 million, and of that total somewhere between eight million and 10 million are refugees. This means that one in four are refugees.
That is not all. Among these refugees there is an undue proportion of old people, orphaned children and invalids. Moreover, the refugees are unequally distributed between the zones, the French zone having practically none, and they are unequally distributed within the zones between the different areas, the regions near the frontier having an altogether disproportionate number. This terrific burden of one refugee in four of the population falls on a country where almost all of the great cities have been devastated. They are heaps of rubble alternating with burned out shells of buildings hastily patched up and repaired.
I do not think there has ever been in the history of the world any precedent for a refugee problem on this scale and of this complexity. I remember indeed one case here the proportion of refugees to the total population was approximately the same. A quarter of a century ago over a million Greeks fled in disorder from Smyrna after their great defeat by the Turks. There, again, there was a quite disproportionate number of old men


and women and orphan children. In that case, with the aid of the League of Nations, the refugees were so successfully established in the country to which they had returned, Greece, that in a few years, instead of being a great and intolerable economic burden, they were actually an asset to the country. But the scale was very different although the proportion was the same; there were only a million or a million and a quarter refugees in that case. Moreover, many Turks had left Greece and there were the large, vacant, and potentially fertile plains in Macedonia in which we were able to establish a great proportion of the refugees. Besides, there was nothing comparable in any devastation of the cities of Greece with that of the devastation of the cities of Germany.
I came back a few weeks ago from seeing some of these West German refugees, some of the British authorities and some of the German authorities in the British zone, and I would like to say something about what this problem is as it concerns the Land Government of, for example, Lower Saxony, where about a third of the population consists of refugees. Some of them are from the lost lands of Germany, Pomerania, East Prussia, and Silesia. Some of them are Sudeten-Deutsche expelled from Czechoslovakia, some are Volks-Deutsche from South-Eastern Europe, people who had been there for generations and have now been expelled. In addition there is a daily inflow varying between 500 and 1,000 a day, sometimes exceeding 1,000, across from the Russian zone.
These people have somehow or other to be dealt with. They have to be compulsorily quartered upon the inadequate housing accommodation of the native inhabitants, and it can easily be understood that, since, although they are racially Germans, they are in many respects alien in culture and in habits and compulsorily quartered in this way, they tend to be unpopular with the native inhabitants. It will also be easily understood that in large numbers of this kind they are politically extremely dangerous. They are combustible material for any extreme party. They are inclined to look back upon the lands from which they have been excluded and to start irredentist movements, and to follow any political party which may bid for their

support by advocating an extreme policy.
In those circumstances it is not unnatural that the Land Government of Lower Saxony should do its best to reduce the number of those still coming in. They issue rather strict instructions to allow in only those who have special reasons, such as political persecution, if the refugees can prove it, or joining relatives already in the Western zone, if they can prove that they have such. I went to a reception camp and watched the application of those rules. I thought the local German inspectors were intelligent, humane and patient, but the application of rules of that kind was necessarily inhuman and, indeed, tragic in many cases.
Moreover, the policy, however natural and intelligible, was quite ineffective because, although the majority of those who sought admission were refused, and some were pushed back across the frontier, as far as I could find out, only about 10 per cent. really went back and stayed back in the Russian zone; the rest disappeared into the underground life of the province and added to all its economic, its black market and political dangers. This is the more inevitable because a not equally severe policy is followed in another province, Schleswig-Holstein, so that a great number of these people rotate and come back into another part of Western Germany.
If we think of the total effect—political, economic, social and human—of this terrific proportion and number—one in four, and in many regions one in three—amounting in total to somewhere between eight million and 10 million, the House will realise that the recovery of Germany to anything like a sound and stable political or social position is almost impossible unless some remedy is found.

Earl Winterton: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have a long connection, longer than anyone in this House or in the Government, with refugees. It is only fair to point out that this is no new question in Germany, and that before the war there were a large number of refugees, mostly of the Jewish race, and neither the German people nor their government gave the slightest help to the Inter-Governmental Committee. If ever a country met with its just deserts, Germany has today in the matter of these refugees.

Sir A. Salter: This problem is new, at least in scale. A great deal of the responsibility for dealing with it must rest, as it does, upon the German authorities. But if only because of the origins of these refugees, who stem partly from Potsdam and, to a large extent, reflect the current issues of policy between ourselves and Russia, I do not think that on grounds of justice, any more than those of practical expediency, we can expect the German authorities to deal with this problem unaided.
What can be done? I suppose it will occur to many of us that emigration offers the best solution. It may be that in the last resort the problem cannot be solved without considerable emigration. But that offers no solution, or even relief, for the difficulties of the next few years. In the first place, with the present restricted opportunities of migration in the world, the displaced persons of allied nationality still remaining in the displaced persons' camps have an indisputably prior claim. In the second place, even if emigration were possible for these refugees, it would obviously be a selective emigration of precisely those who are in the prime of life and the best productive workers, and that would increase the burden of supporting the rest, which is of the magnitude I have suggested.
There are, however, one or two things by which the policy of this Government might help to some extent, indirectly if not directly. For example, we could help to clear the displaced persons' camps and thereby open a few more opportunities for migration to other forms of refugees as general opportunities of migration expand. I will mention one small instance. The Foreign Office has been concerned to give facilities to employers of domestic servants in this country to take, if they will, some of the displaced persons who may be suitable, with their children. I know there are employers who would be willing to do that. But the present Foreign Office plans have not been carried through to a conclusion because there has been opposition from the Ministry of Labour on the ground that English women and children are available for domestic work. There may be English domestic servants available for work on the books of the Ministry of Labour. But I wonder whether the officials who rule out the employment of

domestic servants of other nationalities on that ground consider who, what and where those nominally available English domestic servants are? I feel quite sure that if the Foreign Office would press a little harder—this is not a very big matter—they would be able to get over that particular difficulty in the way of the successful prosecution of a scheme which they started and with which they made some progress.
While speaking of displaced persons, I should like to say to the noble Lord, that I hope some attention will be given to the position of those who still remain when I.R.O. comes to an end.

Earl Winterton: Hear, hear.

Sir A. Salter: I understand it is intended that it should come to an end at no very distant date. For some time to come there will be a terminating but tragic remnant of people who cannot possibly be dealt with by any except charitable means. Apart from those, there are already a considerable number of productive workers for whom migration facilities might, and I hope will, he found.
I come back to the West German refugees themselves, which is my main subject this evening. I should like to make, very shortly, a few suggestions to the Government. I hope they will make the economic absorption of these refugees easier by going rather further and rather more quickly with the modification of their dismantling programme, which they have already begun. There is no doubt that the original conception that underlay the Morgenthau plan was a very disastrous conception. It is being corrected, but much too slowly and disastrously slowly. The American policy in this matter is now much more liberal than ours. Although the Government would be right to make some modifications I think they would find a very useful guide to action in the careful and able American Humphrey Report on this subject.
Secondly, I hope the Governments will go further than is proposed in the plans of the bizonal authorities to O.E.E.C. for the development of light industries. The plans are there and financial provision is proposed. But there is no financial provision for housing. That is a matter which I wish to urge strongly


upon the Government. I believe that the most urgent and most immediately valuable contribution towards the refugee problem in Western Germany would be to improvise very quickly, perhaps by prefabricated methods, hutment and housing accommodation in the regions where industry has been, or is being, expanded. This would be a very suitable addition to the Marshall Aid provisions, because without such living accommodation all the plans which are being included in Marshall Aid are likely to be frustrated if there is nowhere near the new industries where these people can possibly live.
Thirdly, I hope that there will be some improvement as regards the reception and sifting-out arrangements. It is very important that there should be secondary camps to which people who need further consideration and examination than can be given in the 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour that alone is possible in the first transit camp can go to have their cases properly considered. Lastly, I hope that before complete responsibility for the government of Western Germany is passed over to a Western German authority, the allied Governments will do something to secure a better redistribution of the refugees as between the different Zones and Laender. It will be an additional and extremely difficult burden and problem upon the new German authorities if this aid is not given.
I should like, in conclusion, to take a rather longer view into the future. I have said that I do not think emigration can offer any substantial relief to the difficulties of the next few years. But I do not believe that the problem can be ultimately solved—and, indeed, I do not think the problem of the recovery of Europe can be ultimately solved—unless the world will arrange for a vast increase of migration in the years ahead. When we consider not only this category of refugees, but all the other refugees in Europe—the million or so refugees in Greece, the 800,000 refugee Arabs, the Jews who are seeking refuge in Palestine—and when, outside of the refugees altogether, we think of the other local surpluses of population—for example, the excess of population in Italy and the constant increase in that excess—it is very difficult to think that Europe can be politically, economically or socially on a

sound foundation unless somehow or other the world will arrange for a new era of emigration comparable to that which so greatly relieved the population tensions and stresses of the 19th Century.

Earl Winterton: And prevented wars.

Sir A. Salter: And prevented wars, as the noble Lord says. As the House will remember, in North America alone at the turn of the century something like a million people a year were coming from Europe. It is not to be expected that the same numbers can go to the same places at this moment, but vast possibilities still exist in the world. The British Dominions—Canada, South Africa and Australia, for instance—all have opportunities for very considerable development. There are enormous opportunities in South America—Paraguay, Brazil, the Argentine and elsewhere. I would refer hon. Members to an interesting book by Mr. R. W. Thompson, an able traveller and observer, whose work has received too little attention. There are vast opportunities if the Governments of those countries are prepared actively to promote and facilitate their development with the aid of immigrants; the kind of migration that was so immensely beneficial to America at the time when her most rapid development was taking place.
I trust, therefore, that if we must think of this problem in terms other than emigration in the next few years, we shall on a longer view do whatever we can to encourage the countries upon whom the burden of action mainly lies to promote and facilitate a large-scale emigration from Europe. I cannot conceive anything more valuable for the future soundness and stability of Europe than that there should be another great new era of migration as a supplement and a sequel to the European Recovery Programme.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. John Hynd: I am sure the House will appreciate the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) for introducing this particular subject into the Debate. A realistic approach to the problems of Germany and Eastern Europe could hardly be possible without, at least, taking notice of this tremendous


refugee problem, although we may have reservations about some of the suggestions which the right hon. Gentleman has made, most of which, have certainly already been thoroughly examined by the Government. The only thing I should like to say in connection with his speech is that it must not be overlooked that this country has a record second to none in the contribution we have made towards relieving this problem.
I prefer, however, to turn to the wider aspects of today's Debate which were raised in the very striking speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan). In the course of his remarks, the right hon. Gentleman took credit for his party, through the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), for having taken the initiative in creating the movement towards the unification of Europe. I am quite sure that a number of my hon. Friends on this side of the House would agree with quite a lot of what the right hon. Member for Bromley said, particularly his remarks concerning Germany; but I do not think anything could have better stated the difference in motives which inspire us in uttering these common sentiments and supporting common policy than the initiative of the right hon. Member for Woodford on the question of a united Europe.
The fact is that, while we are all enthusiastic in support of particular stated policies, the motives are quite different and the motives of the Conservative Party in supporting the idea of a united Europe have been to restrict the unity of Europe to three points, first, the close collaboration of the Chiefs of Staff, second, a clear statement on the rights of man and, third, closer economic co-operation. I do not think any hon. or right hon. Member opposite would differ from me on that. Their attitude is restrictive, whereas I think the Foreign Secretary can claim credit for having laid the foundations—firm foundations—of a very much wider and more effective co-operation over the face of Europe, leading, as I am quite sure he would agree, towards what would probably be accepted as his shorter term policy, a federation of Europe leading

again, as he hopes, to a much wider federation, possibly covering the whole globe.
Now that I have indicated the difference in motive, which inspires us to welcome the steps for the unification of Europe, the Atlantic Pact and other measures we have had to accept, unfortunately, as a second best, I wish to refer in particular to the problem which faces us in Germany at present. I want to lay particular stress on my continued disappointment with the shifting policy which marks the developments in Germany. When I say shifting policy, I am referring to quadrupartite policy, or at the moment tripartite policy. Our position in Germany has evolved from the Morgenthau position of total destruction of German heavy industry and the isolation of Germany from the community of civilised nations, to the modern conception of a Germany within the Marshall Plan.
On the question of what I mean by the shifting positions, I do not think anything could be clearer than the remark of the Foreign Secretary in reply to an intervention I made last year, when I suggested that Germany should be brought within the Marshall Plan as a full partner. He said that there was nothing more calculated to wreck the Marshall Plan than bringing Germany within its scope. Then, within a few months, it was brought in. It is like the permitted level of industry policy. When that policy was being settled in March, 1946, the proposition from our three allies was that Germany should have a permitted level of industry based on 4,500,000 tons to 5,500,000 tons of steel. We proposed 10,500,000 tons to 11 million tons and were faced with the charge that we were clearly aiming at the rearmament of Germany, because anything more than 5,500,000 tons steel capacity for Germany could only be used for creating another German war machine. But we dug in our heels and the negotiations broke down. Subsequently, the Russians and others asked us to come into negotiations with them and first a limit of 7,500,000 tons and subsequently 10,500,000 tons to 11 million tons was established, and even now that is not regarded as sufficient.
There has, therefore, been a complete change in the attitude regarding Germany's requirements in steel and, presumably, in her requirements in the level


of industry, but, so far as I can understand, we are still maintaining a rigid enforcement of the level of industry which prevents Germany building any kind of merchant ships, or fishing vessels over a certain tonnage, thus preventing her from fishing beyond the overcrowded North Sea in more distant and easier waters, and so hampering the recovery of Germany's economic balance. We are preventing Germany from indulging in certain industries, which we admit are essential, such as the production of synthetic oil and rubber, roller bearings, abrasives and so on. That is precisely the wrong policy in my view and we have to consider the effect on the Germans of this constant modification, or promised modification.
If the Germans are convinced, as I think they must become convinced if they are not already, that the more resistance they put up and the more protests they make the more concessions they will get, there will be no end to it. I would much prefer to see a complete review of the whole conception of the level of industry and I suggest to the Government that they seriously consider what I suggested before, that we should ask the Germans to produce their plan for the utilisation of the resources they have. If they proposed in their plan to produce 22 million tons of steel for the purpose of making battleships, or a fantastic amount of cement for gun emplacements and so on, we would not agree and could veto such a plan, but, of course, they would not do that. If we are to get the Germans to co-operate and operate their own industries in the interests of European economy, the only way to do it is by getting the Germans to prepare a plan and agreeing on such modifications as may be really essential in the interests of security, and then letting them get on with the job.
This level of industry scheme was adopted at Potsdam under an entirely different set of conditions than obtain today. It was a temporary measure during the first period of occupation on the assumption that there would be established a central German administration controlling a centralised German economy. To get on with that policy and to reach that very desirable situation it was admissible for the British Government, or any other single Government, to make concessions for the sake of unity.

But that situation has gone and there is no unity among the allies and no central German economy. Three and a half years have gone by and these things have not been achieved and Germany is already overcrowded to a desperate extent, as the right hon. Member for Oxford University pointed out. Germans are huddled into subhuman accommodation standards and are further overcrowded by refugees from all over Eastern Europe. A vital part of their Eastern economic area has already been taken from them, the Saar has been taken out of their economy and the Ruhr put under foreign domination in regard to the distribution of its products. I think we would take a small risk in allowing the Germans to go ahead with what is left in the rest of Germany.
What is even more important to me than these economic considerations is the effects this would have upon such elements of Germany as we might be prepared to regard as democratic. My hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) drew attention to the fact that possibly there are still very many democrats. During the war the right hon. Member for Woodford made a very courageous reference to the fact that inside Germany there were millions of good democratic people whose voices were silenced, but that one day we would deliver them. Those were not his exact words, but that was the effect of them. The Lord President of the Council made an equally bold statement at that time when he said that there was more in common between the British workers and German workers than between British workers and British capitalists or between German workers and German capitalists. Hon. Members opposite may not agree, but the sentiments are the same. The common links that bind people throughout the world are not links of nationality or tongue, but links of common interest and common status.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the fact that the hon. Member presents the common links in that form, how is it that the Socialists found a common interest with the big multi-millionaire capitalists of America?

Mr. Hynd: In the same way as we have to link our economy with other countries which may not be of the same political opinion as ourselves. We have to link up our economy in this Particular


case with those countries most democratically prepared to work with us. I should be only too happy to link up with Russia, but the simple fact is that Russia will not link up with us, and that is the problem with which we are faced today. I will not come back at the hon. Member and ask what there was in common between Stalin and Hitler.

Mr. Gallacher: I will deal with that if I get the chance.

Mr. Hynd: The German democratic parties have been established and have been encouraged as a deliberate act of policy on our part. I suggest that these German democratic parties are put in an impossible position by the Potsdam policy. Under present conditions, what is a German democratic party to do? In the face of protests made on behalf of the German people by the Communist Party and neo-Nazi organisations that are springing up, are they to become the stooges of the occupying Power or the apologists for a policy about which the Germans cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be expected to show any enthusiasm?
The annexation of the Saar and Silesia are not things which the Germans are likely to be enthusiastic about. But if they have democratic rights they are entitled to express an opinion, and if their opinion is not enthusiastic they must be expected to criticise. Immediately they criticise any measure, such as the demolition of a particular factory, they are charged with being nationalists. I have written to the Foreign Office within the last two or three days about a particular factory where some 600 Sudeten refugees are producing the fancy goods of their own country with the plant in that factory. They now find themselves in the position that that plant is to be dismantled for reparations, and they will presumably be thrown out of work altogether, although their work is an entirely peace-time production.
If they suggest, as they are entitled to suggest, that the Silesian question is not yet settled—and it is not—they are charged with being revisionists. A Question was asked the other day in this House as to what steps the Government proposed to take against certain well-known Social Democrat in Germany

who had made public reference to the annexation of Silesia, and had expressed the hope that it would be returned to Germany. The Government were asked what action was to be taken against that revisionist agitation. It is not revisionist, because the question of Silesia is not yet settled. I cannot see how Germans can be prevented from making some reference to it or expressing a hope that it will yet be returned to Germany. While discussing the question of reviving German nationalism, I would draw attention to the remarks of Dr. Schumacher, who said:
It is utterly absurd to think that Germany has a special political mission to act as go-between and bridge between the East and the West. It will be a very difficult and painstaking task to transform the present geographical and historical entity of Germany into an actual political reality. The illusion of Germany's missionary rôle which has replaced the mad German craving for world domination only serves to frustrate any attempts at solving this great problem.
When the leading spokesman of a great political party in Germany can refer to Germany's previous mad craving for world domination and suggest specifically that what his party would choose is closer co-operation with the rest of the world, or the nations of Europe which are prepared to co-operate, it is difficult to see how these people can be charged with excessive nationalism.
Similarly with the West German constitution. I understand that that has been framed after long discussions by the German political parties at Bonn and agreement has been reached between the Socialist element and the equivalent of the Conservative element in Germany. I believe it is to be referred back, not because it is anti-democratic but because it is not federal enough. What I cannot understand is why, immediately the Social Democrats in Germany suggest there should be central control of finance or even of major taxes or that a Central or West German Government should have the right to socialise one of the major industries, that kind of thing should be called "undue concentration of economic power," when the charge is being made by our own Government which bases its own policy upon the maximum concentration of economic power in accordance with modern conceptions of economy.

Mr. Nigel Birch: Specifically for armament purposes.

Mr. Hynd: When it comes to the question of socialisation I am completely at a loss to understand the position. This question has been raised from time to time in this House and of course I know the reason why it was postponed.

Mr. S. Silverman: Do tell us.

Mr. Hynd: I have already told hon. Members the reason, from the Front Bench. There were other national interests—not American—which had to be considered in drafting the scheme. Other things have intervened since, but the fact remains that within recent weeks Questions have been asked whether or not the American statements that this was a matter to be settled by the German people means that it was to be settled by the Laender Governments, or, when subsequently it was made clear that it was not to be settled by the Laender Governments but by a central administration, whether the Western German Government would he regarded as the competent administration. There was a long answer given, which still leaves it uncertain whether that Government is to have the authority.
It is difficult to know what kind of economic policy that government will be able to carry out in those conditions, not only from the point of view of reviving German economy and European economy but of building up a democratic front in Western Europe. The whole situation points to the urgent necessity of the Government, along with its colleagues—because I realise that this is not a question of a unilateral policy but of getting agreement with other parties—initiating discussions and for a complete review of that policy to be undertaken at once.
So far as nationalism is concerned, it is certainly a menace to the peace of Europe in the future; but the question of whether Europe is to be nationalist or international is not in the hands of the Germans, but in our hands, the Germans have had it taken from their hands. I am certain from the declaration of policy from German political parties that their choice is a policy of unification of Europe, which would be a truly international policy—not a policy of unification of all except Germany and the internationalisation of only German industry. I therefore suggest that the question for us to decide

is how far we are going back to a Europe based on separate nationalisms, or how quickly we are going forward with the elimination of nationalism within Europe and its replacement by internationalism. That is a question for us to decide, and decide quickly.
It will not be done on the basis of the Ruhr Statute. That statute is an unjust proposition as it stands. It is nothing more nor less than foreign domination of a single country's industry—domination by countries whose industries are in direct competition. We cannot complain, although I have protested very often and tried to explain it to the Germans, if they interpret that as an effort to give us an advantage in the competition which will inevitably develop throughout Europe in the future. I am sure they are wrong. That was not the intention, and I am sure that it is not the intention now.
Nevertheless, I suggest that we stop complaining when they put that interpretation on it, because it lends itself to that interpretation. The whole attitude towards the democratisation of Germany and the encouragement of Western Germany to realise that its future lies in real co-operation with the Western democracies must be reviewed. I consider that our present approach is wrong.
It is wrong not only in Germany but also in Austria. It has been declared so often in this House that as far as the British Government are concerned Austria is a free country and that the Austrian Government is an independent Government with power to operate its own constitution. We are told that the only thing that prevents us from withdrawing our troops from Austria is the fact that we cannot get agreement with Russia on the terms of withdrawal and the signing of a treaty.
Yet even now, three years after the establishment of this democratic Austrian Government, we are still vetoing political parties in Austria which even the Russians are prepared to allow. They are democratic political parties which have previously operated in Austria and which are permitted by the Austrian constitution. But the Western Allies' policy in this case—we will get no credit from the Austrians; the Russians will get any credit that is going—is to refuse to allow


this part of the Austrian constitution to operate and to prevent these elements from organising themselves and seeking the votes of the people as political parties. We are told that probably within a few weeks or months we may get agreement. But the Austrian elections will be held in the early autumn of this year, and if the agreement is held up for another three months we shall be far too late. The purpose behind the holding up of the sanction of these parties will be interpreted according to the lights of the Austrian people and not according to ours.
I would say that I am satisfied that the only hope of building up the democratic front in Western Europe is by the establishment of a real unity of purpose and policy between the Western democracies. By that I mean something more than the Conservative conception of a linking up of chiefs of staffs and closer economic operation. I mean the more rapid building up of the policy founded by the Foreign Secretary—the real integration of our economies and the linking up of all the activities already taking place through O.E.E.C. and all the other organisations that already exist, towards the final establishment of a political authority which will enable that linked economy to operate effectively. That should be done on a world scale and it should be done through the United Nations organisation. That was the purpose for which it was set up. The Economic and Social Council was one of the key organisation intended for that purpose. But three and a half years have gone and we have failed to achieve it, not through any lack of effort on our part but through the veto which has been applied at every stage.
If we cannot achieve this purpose through the United Nations, whether on the economic, the political, the social or on the defence plane, then obviously we have no alternative but to try to do it within the limits of the democratic nations who are prepared and capable, because of their common conceptions, of co-operation to operate such a system. If we accept that the democratic nations must link up on these planes for their own defence and for the building up of their own prosperity, then this must either include or exclude Germany.
Whether it includes or excludes Germany is not a question for the Germans to decide. It is a question for us to decide and we can decide it, now through the review of our policy which I have urged. If that review is undertaken wisely, we may succeed. If it is not, then I am satisfied that the issue within Germany will become democrats versus anti-democrats and that by the very operation of our policy we shall tie the hands of our own potential allies in Germany. We shall make their position impossible and, as a result, we shall hand over Germany lock, stock and barrel to a totalitarian regime once again.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Birch: It is very remarkable what a radical reformation has taken place in the hon. Gentleman the Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) since he descended from the Front Bench and ascended to the back benches—

Mr. J. Hynd: Not at all.

Mr. Birch: Since he has been speaking from the back benches I have rarely disagreed with him, whereas I never once agreed with him when he spoke from the Front Bench. If only going to the back benches can do that, perhaps he will change which side of the House he sits on and then he might get off without a stain on his character.
I too wish to speak about Germany, and I would agree very largely with what the hon. Gentleman has said. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) said that what was now going on was a struggle for the soul of Germany. I believe that to be profoundly true. If the iron curtain is pushed forward to the Western frontiers of Germany, if all the lands to the East of the Rhine are to be on the dark side of the moon, then I do not think that there is any hope for the preservation of Western civilisation in Europe. The battle will be over if that happens. That the iron curtain should be pushed forward to the Rhine is the Russian policy consistently though clumsily pursued. The talk going on from Russian sources about a new Rapallo is part of the plan. We do well, I think, to fear Russia's military power, but Russia's military


power combined with the potential military power of Germany would be the most terrible menace that the world had ever had to face.
This is, as I believe, the vital ground in Western Germany. What has been the policy of His Majesty's Government throughout these past years? It is very difficult to find out. As the hon. Member for Attercliffe has said, it has been a shifting policy, a policy which has been far from clear at any time. I do not think that the hon. Member for Attercliffe can altogether absolve himself from some blame here, because the remarks he made when he was directing policy in Germany were. I thought, not always very clear. I should like to make one quotation from what he said at that time. According to the "Manchester Guardian" the hon. Gentleman used these words when defending his administration in Germany:
Provided encouragement is given to the democratic elements in Germany with a proper chance to take root and develop I see no reason why the same transformation should not take place there that turned the aggressor of the early nineteenth century against whom peace-loving Germany fought at the side of England into the peace-loving France of our time.
It is a remarkable statement if one can penetrate through the protective fog of Socialist phrases. What was Germany at the time of the Napoleonic Wars? Was Marshal Blucher a representative peace-lover? Presumably, we made France democratic by restoring the Bourbons. Though the statement made by the hon. Gentleman itself means very little, I think the ideas behind it can be discerned. There have been two ideas. The first idea has been that the methods and actions we have undertaken in Germany have been the right ones to change their character. Secondly—and this is the important point which lies behind everything we have done—there has been the idea that Germany is not only a military menace but the military menace. All the original policy was based upon that idea. I want to discuss the question of Germany as a military menace. I think, Mr. Speaker, you would agree that, in this House—

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Solicitors, Public Notaries, &amp;c., Act, 1949.
2. British North America Act, 1949.
3. Social Services (Northern Ireland Agreement) Act, 1949.
4. Tyne Improvement Act, 1949.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL

Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Orders of the Day — GERMANY AND EASTERN EUROPE

6.39 p.m.

Mr. Birch: A few moments ago, I was about to examine the question whether an independent Germany in the circumstances of today can be considered to be a potential military menace. I think you, Sir, will agree that we have in this House a very fair ration of world strategists, and I do not want to trespass on their special preserves nor am I so clear as are some hon. Members as to what are the strategic consequences of modern weapons. However, I would say—and I think this can be said with confidence—that three considerations will be important in any future war. They are manpower, industrial power, and dispersion.
As far as manpower goes, what we have to do is to look a little into the future, because there can be no question of Germany, now largely destroyed and with its armament factories removed, making war in the immediate future. Let us look forward to the population position in 1970. In 1944, the League of Nations published a study on population trends in which it was predicted that in 1970 the population of Russia would be 251 million. If we add to that the satellite countries—I exclude from them Finland and Yugoslavia—we get a total of 356 million people. Perhaps to that figure we may have to add 400 million Chinese. As against that, the prediction of German population in 1970 is only


69 million. There is clearly a big margin of error in these figures, but their order is right, and, on the whole, they probably tend not to exaggerate the preponderance of Russian strength.
As far as industrial power is concerned, as we have just heard from the hon. Member for Attercliffe, Germany is still operating under great handicaps; she suffered great destruction. There can be little doubt that for the next 20 years the industrialisation and industrial progress of Russia will be far more rapid than anything that can be attempted in Germany. On the last point, that of dispersion—this consideration will be of far greater importance in a future war than it has been in the past—the industries of Russia are spread out from Leningrad to Vladivostock, and extend up and down the Urals. Any attempt to knock out the industry of Russia with atom bombs would be very difficult, whereas the industrial power of Germany, concentrated as it is in the Ruhr, would be an easy target in any form of atomic warfare.
Bearing these three considerations in mind, I cannot believe that any rational man can accept the idea that an independent—I stress the word "independent"—Germany can be a military menace in the foreseeable future. It is in this context of Germany not being a military menace that we must consider the measures we have taken, measures which were, according to the hon. Member for Attercliffe, designed to bring Germany into the Western family of nations and to win the contest for her soul. I have often said in this House that the things we have done in Germany have been morally wrong and politically disastrous, and I see no reason to take back those words. I would include in the morally wrong things we have done the policy on arrestable categories, the scale of our denazification, the treating of all regular German soldiers as militarists, and, therefore, as pariahs who ought to have their money stopped and be unemployable—something exactly opposite to what the Russians have done with Paulus and others—and many of the war criminal trials. We are still thinking up charges against some of the surviving German generals against whom up to the present no charge has been brought.

Mr. J. Hynd: Regarding the stopping of German officers' pensions, surely the hon. Gentleman is aware that they were highly inflated pensions under the Nazis designed to encourage militarism. When they were stopped, it was for the purpose of bringing them into line with the normal social insurance provisions.

Mr. Birch: What happened with regard to the pensions was that all the old German sergeant-majors and generals were put on public assistance, which I cannot think was the right thing to do, but I am now speaking of the treatment of German staff and other officers who are not pensionable, but who, because they are classed as militarists, are regarded as permanent pariahs. That is far more dangerous than ill-treating those old men. Although that was a wrong thing to do, it was not of great importance in Germany, whereas the complete crushing of a whole class of people whom the Russians are doing everything to favour is extremely dangerous. That is the point I was trying to make.
These things were morally wrong, and I think that our economic conduct has been foolish if not, in some cases, also morally wrong. The long delay in currency reform was criminal, and this absurd shifting policy with regard to factory demolition has been appalling, and not least appalling in that it gives the Germans no confidence whatever either in our good sense or integrity. It has been a continuously shifting policy the whole way through, and a particularly ludicrous policy in view of the fact that Western Germany is going to be grossly overpopulated for as long ahead as we can see. That being so, what is required is that all the factories there should be made to work.
I also think that this is a very wrong moment to start rectifying the Western frontiers of Germany. I understand that a number of rectifications in the Western frontiers of Germany are contemplated which will have the effect of putting some 100,000 or more Germans, into either Holland or Belgium. This is something which might have been done immediately after the war, but to do it at this time is, I think, idiocy. Lastly, delay in drawing up the occupation statute at a time when the Germans are trying to hammer out their own constitution is very damaging.
For the last one and a half years we have been engaged in a laborious undoing of many of the things we have done. The trouble is that we pull out two pins and, as soon as we have done so, always stick in another. Therefore, the net result on the German psyche is not beneficial. The only positive thing which right hon. Gentlemen opposite have done is to try to foster the Social Democrats in Germany. That has been a fairly ineffective policy, but it has given some results. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) can, I think, claim credit for it; I understand that he was a high officer in the political division. The type of effect it has produced in Germany was illustrated by a case which happened last summer. A German was arrested and put into prison for insulting British women while bathing. His defence was, "You cannot do this to me; I am a Socialist." That, I think, is a great tribute to the work done by the hon. Member for Edmonton. However, I do not think it has done us much good, and I feel it to be fundamentally absurd to suppose that we can attach the Germans to the Western cause by supporting a party which is both orthodox Marxist and atheist.

Mr. Albu: Would not the hon. Gentleman recognise that the work that we did, for instance in Berlin, was extremely successful? In fact, it was the first real resistance to the Communist pressure which was coming from the East, and that was done by and with the Democratic Party in Berlin.

Mr. Birch: All I am saying is that the hon. Gentleman has done what he was sent out to do, and he produced some very remarkable results. I believe that we should have acted very differently in Germany if from the outset the mind of the Government had been clear about what they were trying to do—if they had been clear that Germany is not an immediate military menace, that Russia is a military menace, and that Germany and Russia combined are a terrible military menace. If we had been clear on those points, I do not believe that our policy in Western Germany would have been as clumsy and foolish as in fact it has been. I hope that we shall now try to heal the wounds, that we shall try to bring the Germans into Western Union as both the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) and

my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley have urged, and that we shall stop sticking pins into them all the time.
It may be said—and very understandably from those who have suffered—that we are offering to the Germans rewards proportionate to their crimes, and I do not deny the crimes of the Germans. Nor do I believe that they have undergone any change of heart. I have no false sentiment upon that matter at all, but because they have committed crimes and because they are quite capable of committing crimes again, there is no reason why we should act wrongly or foolishly. I profoundly believe that charity, good sense and interest all pull in the same direction, and that direction is the welcoming of Germany into Western Union and a building up of her economy.
I appreciate that this is unpleasant to the French, and I further realise that they are intensely sensitive to any idea of re-arming the Germans. I do not suggest re-arming the Germans. The only thing which I think we should consider is that we should not allow a paramilitary force under General von Paulus to be built up in Eastern Germany without saying "If you build up a paramilitary force in Eastern Germany we shall do so in Western Germany." If we do not react to the re-arming of the East Germans we shall be putting a card into the hands of the Russians which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley said, they will certainly play. If the Russians are going to arm the Germans to some extent, there is no reason why we should not do so, but I certainly should not suggest anything further than a parallel force to anything which the Russians set up.
I hope that we shall hear from the Foreign Secretary some indication that he really has cleared his mind on this subject, and that he is coming down on the right side. So far, he has not cleared his mind on the subject, and whenever he has spoken on the subject of Germany he has always come down on the wrong side. I have always felt of the right hon. Gentleman that words could be applied to him which were applied to a French statesman in the reign of the third Napoleon, that there is nobody who thinks more deeply about nothing. We see the right hon. Gentleman cogitating on the Front Bench, and very nearly


nothing comes out of it. What we have been doing all this time is dithering between two different policies. I will conclude with the words of Tacitus:
A middle course is the worst of all policies in times of doubt.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. Albu: I cannot entirely follow the hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Birch), although I agree with a good deal of what he has said. In particular I think it would be extremely dangerous at present and, as the hon. Member himself admitted, in the present state of the German mind, to start arming the German people again even if only for the purpose of the defence of Western Europe against Communism. He himself admitted that very little change has taken place in the state of the German mind, and I am afraid that all reports at present confirm that belief. I cannot entirely support my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) in his attitude towards this problem. In a recent article by an intelligent and able writer in a Hamburg newspaper there was a very interesting and serious discussion as to why the Germans were unpopular. Every sort of reason was given, including the reason that they lacked ease and social charm. The only reason which was not given was the fact that some of them in the past few years had murdered between 11 and 13 million of their fellow Europeans. We cannot escape from these facts, and there is a serious danger that the Germans themselves are escaping from recognising the real causes of their unpopularity in Europe.
We have to recognise that the French, Dutch, Belgian and other European nations have some justification for their suspicions and doubts. The policy which my right hon. Friend has pursued, therefore, is not quite so simple as the hon. Gentleman seemed to think. However, I believe that we have now come to a point where there are very serious dangers if we continue to delay in the setting up of a Western German Government. I realise that these delays arise out of disagreements between the Western occupying Powers over their treatment of Germany, and these differences are not the same as the differences which we have with the Russians in Berlin; in my opinion, those differences relate not so

much to Germany as to the general international field.
I do not want to speak of Berlin, but I would like to pay my tribute to the work of those in Berlin, particularly to that of our Military Governor, who for four years has really been in the front line of diplomacy, especially in relation to the Russians. Reference has been made to the part which I have played in Berlin, and I want to say that our Control Commission in Berlin, and our Military Governor in particular, have regarded their job as a real mission for peace. They have thought of themselves doing a job in which it was possible to have some common agreement and cooperation and in which it might be possible for all to work together. We know that it is not through our fault that that has not been possible. The strain under which the senior members of the Commission must have been living, especially during the last few months, merits a tribute from this House, and we should also recognise that the much maligned Control Commission, faced with a difficult problem in Berlin, have come out of it extremely well.
I believe that the attention to diplomacy in the early days of the occupation meant that a good many of the details of administration and of social and political developments in our zone received less attention than they deserve. The truth is—and the blame does not only rest with the present Government—that we started the occupation with practically no positive social policy. Each occupying Power tried to introduce its own ideas of political administration, and many of these were 50 or 100 years out of date in their own countries. In the very early days some people with little experience of local government tried to introduce a system of local government which was already out of date in England, while the Americans were introducing a system on the same lines almost starting with a town meeting. To be quite fair, my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe made some considerable improvements, and I think that some of these changes are bearing fruit. After all, when he was in office conditions were very difficult indeed. We never knew week by week whether there would be enough wheat for even the extremely low ration on which the German people were being fed. There was no Marshall Aid in those


days, nor was there the present development of Western Union. Some of the changes made at that time have been extremely beneficial.
A great change has come over the situation, of course, since the currency reform which, I agree with the hon. Member for Flint, was very much delayed. We have now a considerable economic recovery. I believe the hon. Member for Flint perhaps underestimated the extent of that economic recovery. Something like 80 to 90 per cent. of the 1936 production is already taking place and something like 8 million to 9 million tons of steel are being produced. This has brought with it a considerable growth of self-confidence among leading German politicians, business men, and administrators.
I do not believe it is possible to continue to treat the German authorities as if they were under tutelage or to continue the pettifogging interference which was evident in the replies to Questions put to the Foreign Secretary by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Bramall) on Monday. The Germans have to learn in their administration to make their own mistakes. It is no good us attempting any longer to think—and I am not at all sure that it was ever possible—that we could create by our occupying forces democracy in our image in another country. Nor do I believe it right—and whether it is right or not it is certainly not expedient or possible in the long run—to impose the details of the basic law of the German constitution which the elected German representatives are being asked to work out at Bonn and which the German people will be asked freely to accept. After all, government and administration rests on the authority either of force or free acceptance. I do not think we are intending to use force to carry out German laws and it is obviously right, if the Germans are to govern themselves through their representatives, that their taws are freely accepted.
But we must realise that our representatives are not the main offenders in this matter. The French, with their very great and natural anxiety, have tried to press a policy of extreme decentralisation while the Americans, frequently advised or represented by university teachers of constitutional law, see democracy only in States' rights. I ask the Government to recognise that in France, at any rate, the

extreme decentralisation position is not of the moderates but of reaction and very often extreme reaction. The extreme decentralisation position is Gaullist. It has been disowned by Socialists and other more sensible men of the M.R.P. I wonder whether the officials of the Economic Co-operation Administration in Europe, who understand the need for planning, support a constitution which is designed to perpetuate the economics of laissez faire.
On this matter the instructions of the military governors are confusing. In reply to a Question put by myself on Monday a very long-winded and extremely unclear statement of the position was given by the Under-Secretary of State. I asked a question about who would have the power under the new constitution and the new instructions given by military governors to legislate on the ownership and control of industry. The reply indicated that it would depend on the circumstances. The actual words were:
Under the terms of the Memorandum it would therefore depend upon the circumstances of each case whether the Land or Federal Government is competent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1949; Vol. 463, c. 3.]
Even in the actual Memorandum of the military governors the number of items which come under their instruction are very large indeed, including economy, trades, commerce, banking, stock exchange and so on—26 items in all. When I asked my hon. Friend who would be the arbiter in this matter he rather hesitatingly replied that it would be the Federal Government, but of course the whole essense of a federal system is that there is a contract between the central Government and the States and this must always in that case rest with some constitutional authority, in this case presumably a constitutional court. However the Germans wish to legislate on these matters, the final decision will be made by the judges, and we remember Roosevelt and the nine old men. Are we trying to impose a German constitution whereby they are never able to carry out necessary legislation and must always rely upon the decision of the judges? It must lead to delay and give rise to suspicion that it is meant to ensure that the Germans never have power to bring under their own popular, democratic control the basic industries of their country.
It is sometimes argued that decentralisation is a defence against Communism but I ask the House, what would be the position of Communism in Germany if a free vote were taken throughout Germany, West and East? The Communists would not get 5 per cent. of the votes. In those circumstances, the danger of Communism in Germany is very small indeed. Of course, if government is made impossible, if by constitution it is not possible to carry out government, desperate men will arise with the desire to force the unity of the country and they will make appeals of every sort—every sort of demagogic appeal—for the unification of their country. There is always the danger that the Communists may follow Hitler in trying to capture Germany state by state, starting with the states which border on the Western zones.
The present situation, with this inability to legislate or the doubt about the future possibility of being able to legislate on these matters, can only help those industrialists and business men who have been made immensely wealthy because of their ownership of real assets at the time of the currency reform. They are displaying a lamentable lack of social feeling at the present time which makes one doubt the German attitude to Germans. The demonstration of wealth and display which, I am told, exists in the industrial towns—the black market restaurants, the expensive shops—while, as some hon. Members have said, many Germans are living in terrible conditions of housing and even of possibility of food shortage, is something which is to be deplored.
Not only that, but these industrialists are resisting the perfectly just and right demands of the German trade unions for a share in economic policy. The power of the trade unions, unlike that of the industrialists, has been very much reduced because at the time of the currency reform, as they owned no real assets but only cash or securities, their funds were reduced by nine tenths. They are, in fact, one of the most stable and democratically based forces in Germany today and for this a great deal of credit must go to the Manpower Division of the Control Commission and particularly to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs who, when he was at the Ministry of Labour, sent a very fine team of officials from that Department. If there is one

criticism it is that they lack some political understanding. They lost the trade unions in Berlin—there has been some recovery since then—because they did not understand the political importance of the trade unions.
I still doubt whether our officials in Germany understand the importance of backing the trade unions at the present time. I should like to see the trade unions in Germany pressing their demands for a greater share in the economic control in the Western zones and should certainly like a message to go, at any rate from these benches in this House, to the trade unions in that sense, because I believe they are the greatest force, the greatest security, which we have for a democratic development—a far greater security than the political parties.
Meanwhile, I think the time has come when we should draw a line under the account in Germany. All the past is not lost, but a new period has undoubtedly opened. The Germans must be allowed to set up a Government with reasonable possibilities of legislating on economic matters, with reasonable economic powers. I believe that the Control Commission and its personnel should be greatly reduced and a small permanent staff left. I should not like to see the present Military Governor go but I should certainly like to see a considerable reduction of the officials of Frankfort and an amalgamation of the officials of the regions and of the present intelligence staffs who often seem to be duplicating the same job. We must keep the Military Security Board and the Ruhr Control. I agree with hon. Members that we have to have a German Government set up which can be made to face its own problems, to face its own people and to take responsibility for its own development. They must be brought into the European planing organisation.
I do not believe they understand the difficulties and I believe they are escaping the difficulties because of the aid they are receiving. I should like that aid to be fixed, finite. I should like to see them take and made to take responsibility for their own affairs. If this is not done and if they are not brought into the European Co-operation Organisation, we shall in a short time have uncontrolled competition from German industrialists backed by American capital.


There are two ways of dealing with these people. We can either bring them integrally into the European economy and plan the economy of our own country so that it is complementary to theirs, or we can try to suppress Germany, which was the Morgenthau Plan. If we do that we shall only produce a Germany of unscrupulous men who will take advantage of the poverty-stricken condition of their country.

7.11 p.m.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Some interesting speeches have been made on both sides of the House on this great subject. I think it is important for those of us who sincerely believe that it is a question of our survival, and the survival of European civilisation, neither to exaggerate nor to minimise the points on which we differ from the Government. There is a good deal in the speeches from time to time made by the Minister of State and by the Foreign Secretary with which I agree. I hope that they will not think the sincerity of that statement less if I make it clear that there are some points on which I disagree.
The "cold war" is an expression that comes from the other side of the Atlantic, and, like many expressions that come from the other side of the Atlantic, it has come into general use without being, perhaps, a very happy expression. There are three things which I would say about the cold war. The first is that very definitely it is a war. On that I do not pray in aid anything said by any Conservative statesman. It is sufficient to mention three considered statements by Ministers—the speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on 15th September last year, the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 1st November, 1948, and the statement made at the end of Questions by the Minister of State exactly a week ago. Nobody who studies any of those statements has any doubts that we are at war.
The second point I want to bring home is that it is by no means cold. Our planters who are being murdered in Malaya do not find it a very cold war. The Greek peasants whose villages are being burned and whose children are being carried into captivity do not find it very cold. The third proposition that I would make about the cold war is, I

think, the only one on which there can be controversy. I only give my own sincere opinion. It is that at the present stage all the evidence is that civilisation is losing the cold war.

Mr. Gallacher: The hon. and learned Gentleman represents civilisation?

Mr. Strauss: I shall deal with the hon. Member for West Fyfe (Mr. Gallacher) in one moment. I say that the evidence is that civilisation is losing the cold war. I believe it to be of vital importance for all who care for our civilisation to try to make the facts clear and to do everything possible to diminish public misunderstanding.
Let me give an example of public misunderstanding. One would think from reading many newspapers and from hearing many utterances by the B.B.C. that the great air lift represented an Anglo-American triumph and a Russian failure. I believe that nothing could be further from the truth. Let me say at once that I agree with what I believe to be the sentiment of every other Member of this House, that we should pay tribute to the magnificent achievement of the airmen who are making that great enterprise possible; but do not let us forget for one moment that the Russians, without a shadow of legality, and without spending one penny, are putting civilisation to a constant and enormous economic loss. Let me quote, to express my agreement with it, the description of this air lift made by the Leader of the Opposition in a speech outside this House, when he said this:
It is like a contest in endurance between two men, one of whom sits quietly grinning in his armchair, while the other stands on his head hour after hour in order to show him how much he is in earnest.
Another misunderstanding which I believe to be a great misunderstanding is that the risk generally spoken of, when people talk of the cold war, is the risk that it may one day turn into what the Americans call a "shooting war." That is, indeed, a risk; that is a great risk; but it is not the only risk, and it is not, perhaps, the most probable risk. The other risk is that European civilisation may go down without the enemies of that civilisation even having to fight.
Since the hon. Member for West Fife interrupted me a short time ago and I


promised to deal with him, I should like to quote an authority that even he will accept, and that is the authority of Lenin. Lenin gave advice to the hon. Member for West Fife as to why he should enter this House. The hon. Member for West Fife had written a letter to a paper which, believe it or not, was called "The Worker's Dreadnought," in which he advocated having nothing to do with Parliamentarianism. The great Lenin found the hon. Member—he was not then a Member of this House—in many ways an apt pupil, but he thought he had gone very wrong on that point, and this is what Lenin said:
The writer of this letter does not raise the question—does not think of raising the question—as to whether it is possible to bring about the victory of the Soviets over Parliament without getting our Soviet politicians into Parliament, without disrupting parliamentarianism from within, without preparing the ground within Parliament for the success of the Soviets' forthcoming task of dispersing Parliament.

Mr. Douglas Marshall: Now let the hon. Member for West Fife interrupt.

Mr. Gallacher: All right, I will. May I ask the hon. and learned Member whether somebody provided him with that quotation, or whether he has read the book? If he has not read the book, I hope he will read it. It will do him a whole lot of good.

Mr. Strauss: I can assure the hon. Member that I have certainly read the book. I have advised many others to read the book. [Interruption.]

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. If the hon. and learned Member is courteous enough to give way to me so that I may ask him a question, and if he is courteous enough to reply, cannot right hon. Gentlemen behave themselves?

Earl Winterton: I said the hon. Member was a traitor.

Mr. Speaker: The noble Lord is forgetting himself. He must not say that an hon. Member is a traitor. He must withdraw that remark.

Earl Winterton: I said the hon. Member was a traitor to Parliamentarianism.

Mr. S. Silverman: Whether the noble Lord intended the word "traitor" to be unqualified, as he first used it, or whether

he now intends it to be qualified in the sense that he has indicated, is it not equally out of Order?

Mr. Speaker: I have dealt with that proposition.

Earl Winterton: I persist in the statement that any member of the Communist Party must necessarily be a traitor to Parliamentarianism.

Mr. Strauss: Having read out Lenin's advice to the hon. Member I naturally gave way when he wished to interrupt, but I would assure him that I read the sacred documents of Communism myself and in every speech which I make in the country I urge others to do likewise.
I now come to the first point on which I differ from His Majesty's Government. In the speech of the Foreign Secretary of last September, to which I have alluded, the Foreign Secretary made it perfectly clear that he had known all along that in one place after another the Soviet Government were stirring up civil war as an instrument of policy. That act of stirring up civil war in other countries as an instrument of policy is a direct breach of an express term of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Alliance. I suggest that when the Foreign Secretary knew that that treaty was being broken constantly in this way, it would have been better if he had complained of the breach, instead of doing as he did, namely, offering an extension of the life of the treaty which was being broken. I think that it is very difficult to hope that the Kremlin will treat this country seriously when the reward which they get for breaking a treaty is an offer to extend its life.
I think that if our civilisation is to be saved, we must study Communism and know what it is after. Let me give an example of the attitude of "Let's pretend," which I think is very significant. I think that perhaps some hon. Members opposite, when I have given the example, may agree with me. Many will have studied some of the documents which in the last few months have been put out by the T.U.C. on this subject. In one of the earliest of these statements, they said that "the pretended dissolution"—that is, the dissolution of the Comintern—"is now known to have been a mere device." The pretended dissolution took place in May, 1943, and the Cominform was established in October, 1947. The


T.U.C. say that the pretended dissolution is now known to have been a mere device. I say that it was always known to be a mere device by every student of Communism.
If the House will allow me, I should like to remind them of the signatories of the resolution of dissolution, and then remind them of what happened to the gentlemen afterwards and their subsequent or present positions: Togliatti, the chairman of the Italian Communist Party; Dimitrov, the tyrant of Bulgaria; Gottwald, the President of Czechoslovakia; Zhdanov, recently deceased, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party and a member of the Supreme Soviet; Thorez and Marty, of the French Communist Party; Pieck, Secretary-General of the German Communist Party and unofficial President of the Soviet zone of Germany; Anna Pauker, the tyrant of Roumania; and Rakosi, Secretary-General of the Hungarian Communist Party. I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in all quarters: is it not absolutely obvious that what these gentlemen and this lady were doing in 1943 was proceeding or preparing to proceed to their action stations?
I say that there is no excuse whatever for pretending that we do not know what the Communists are after, because we can discover what they are after by two independent methods, both of which give us the same result. The first method of finding out what they are after is by reading the sacred books of this dogmatic secular religion and seeing what it is that they say that they are after, and then doing them the honour of believing that they are sincere. The quotations which I shall give will not be many. They are all from Stalin's "Problems of Leninism," not an English translation made in England or America, but the English translation published in Moscow, and dated 1947. There are three propositions which I would ask the House to bear in mind, each of which I will prove with a single quotation, as I know that there are many other hon. Members who wish to speak.
The first is the well-known fact that in the view of the Communists—a view no doubt sincerely held—every State not yet captured by Communism and, therefore, in their view a capitalist State, is destined to collapse in violence and in

prolonged violence. In some of these quotations, Stalin is quoting statements already made by either Marx or Lenin, and the one which I am now about to give is one from Lenin, which Stalin has frequently quoted with approval:
We are living not merely in a State hut in a system of States, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist States for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States will be inevitable.
The second proposition is that Russia constitutes the base for revolution in all other countries:
The world significance of the October Revolution lies not only in that it constitutes a great start made by one country in causing a breach in the system of imperialism and that it is the first centre of Socialism in the ocean of imperialist countries, but also in that it constitutes the first stage of the world revolution and a mighty base for its further development.
The third proposition is the fundamental importance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In case any Member should be in any doubt whatever as to what is meant by this, let me give this final quotation from the sacred writings:
The scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing more nor less than unrestricted power, absolutely unimpeded by laws or regulations and resting directly upon force Dictatorship means … unlimited power, based on force and not on law.
These are a few of the bloodthirsty doctrines that the Bishop of Birmingham apparently believes to have been held by our Lord's disciples. That is the first method of finding out what the Communists are after—by reading what they say they are after and believing them. I say further that it is quite as dangerous to suppose that Stalin does not mean what he has written as it was to make the same mistake about Hitler.

Earl Winterton: And his friends in this country.

Mr. Strauss: But there is a second and independent method of finding out what the Communists are after, and that is by observing what for years they have been doing, and then applying the simple but wise doctrine of the English common law, that men are presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions. If throughout the world,


in every country not yet under Communist domination, we find the Communists working against established authority, working to prevent economic recovery, and working to produce economic chaos, and, where possible, starvation, if that is found to be the effect of their action, we may be quite certain that it is also their purpose.
Now, if these things are true, what is the reason why this menace is not universally recognised? The reason is the continuing prevalence of three or four quite simple errors. The first error is this: that Communist success has anything whatever to do with its winning popular support. It has nothing to do with it. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said that not more than 5 per cent. of the Germans are Communists, and that therefore they are no danger. I do not suppose they are more than 5 per cent, in many of the countries they now rule. Why is it that Comrade Pollitt and Comrade Homer are not Members of this House? There is one reason and one reason only: Whenever either of them has stood for election the electors were allowed to vote for somebody else. They, of course, would do away with all that nonsense and establish the principle that they have in Russia and Eastern Europe, where no one is allowed to stand unless he is a member of the Communist Party or belongs to a party of fellow-travellers agreed with the Communists in advance.
I wonder if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen have read the interesting correspondence that recently passed between Stalin and Tito? If so, I recommend to them either the last or the penultimate letter from Stalin. I have not got the exact words, but I think I am summarising it fairly—and if I am not I can no doubt be corrected. He said: "The Yugoslav Communists are really intolerably conceited. They seem to think that because they have been successful that means they have some merit. They seem to think that they are more meritorious than the Italian Communists and the French Communists. On the contrary," says Stalin, "they are not nearly so good; they have merely had more luck. The Red Army was able to operate in Yugoslavia, but had not been able to operate so far in France and

Italy." I am bound to say that I thought Mr. Stalin put the point very fairly.
The second of the great errors is this: that the people who matter are those who call themselves Communists. Let me assure the House of what is indeed obvious to it already, that those who call themselves Communists are very often those who could not be a danger to anybody, with the possible exception of their friends. They, let me assure the House, are not the danger. Those who are dangerous are those who are Communists but call themselves something else. If any hon. Members want support for that, let them study the Blue Book of the Canadian Royal Commission of 1946, where they will find, in passage after passage, the director writing from Moscow saying to his agent in Canada: "So-and-so proposed as an agent is useless for our purpose because he is already known to be 'a Red.'"
The third of the great errors is that political action is more important than economic sabotage. It is not. In this country the Communists are not even seeking to enter this House or local councils in great numbers. What they are seeking, and what they are obtaining, is the capture of key positions. I wonder how many hon. Members have thought what an extraordinary position it is in which the Foreign Secretary says, again and again, to the miners, "If you will increase the output of coal you will greatly strengthen my foreign policy," while the chief miners' leader is a member of the Communist Party whose daily organ says, with perfect truth, that its principal object is to smash the Foreign Secretary's foreign policy?

Mr. Gallacher: Would the hon. Gentleman also mention that the two leading officials in Scotland are members of the Communist Party; and would he also say where the best results in coal production come from?

Mr. Strauss: If I were making a speech on coal I might deal with all those things, but I agree that there are Communists among the miners' leaders in Scotland. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that.
I must now come, if I may, to what I consider a very important point indeed, and one on which, although abroad the truth is generally recognised, in England


and the United States there is still widespread error. It is still supposed, quite erroneously, that Communism is a sort of disease of poor, uneducated men. It is nothing of the sort. I do not believe there is any hon. Member in any quarter of the House who has the least difficulty in forgiving an honest trade union worker attracted by a man whom he believes to be an efficient trade union leader into taking a view of Communism which is not the true view. It is not those men or their appetites that are threatening our civilisation.
The formidable Communists in this country, as elsewhere, are the educated, the well off, the prosperous. Not very long ago, last year, there was a Congress of Intellectuals held in a Communist country. It is difficult to imagine self-respecting men going to a congress with such a label. Perhaps as a university Member and one concerned with education I may give a short definition of an intellectual. An intellectual is a man educated beyond his intelligence; and the intellectuals who flock to these conferences of intellectuals in Communist countries are men who entertain a view of their own intelligence which is shared by nobody else, with the possible exception of the B.B.C. If our civilisation goes down it will go down through the treason of the learned—to give the famous name of a book published in 1927 by Julien Benda, "La trahison des clercs." It is that which is threatening the survival of our civilisation.
I want to point out to the House that there is no reason for believing that time is on our side. I am not going into any discussion of weapons or anything of that kind in making that statement. I ask the House to consider two things. The first is what is happening on our side of the Iron Curtain, where the Communists have the much easier job of destruction compared with their opponents' job of construction. More important even than that is what is happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain. There something is happening without any precedent in history, and that is the second consideration. The Communists have discovered how it is possible to murder whole nations by liquidating, in their elegant phrase, all those whom they consider capable of leadership; by indulging in what they call "social

engineering," they can wipe out independent nations as they have already wiped out the Baltic States.
I believe that today there is a good deal of agreement outside the ranks of the Communists and fellow-travellers about the nature of this menace. Let us have a little realism. I was sorry to see that the Foreign Secretary, in a speech in his new constituency, said:
I have no quarrel at all with the Communist system in Russia. If that is what they like it is their business, not mine.
I regret to say that those seemed to me rather heartless words. Of course, if he had said that we could do nothing about it everyone would agree, but he was speaking of a system which dooms millions of men to slavery in which their lives are nasty, brutish and short. The Minister of State quoted what a Russian lady had recently said in this country, when she spoke of the threatened fate of the minority. But the greatest error in the whole statement was the supposition that the Communists were a majority. They are a tiny minority even in Russia. The greatest error of all, as great an error in morals as it is an error in intelligence, is to suppose that the Russians will stand on their present lines. They will certainly either advance or retreat. We have no right whatever to consider as permanent every advance the Communists have hitherto made.
The last point I wish to put to the House—and I thank Members for the patience with which they have listened to what I hope they realise is a serious speech—is the implications of some of the arguments that hon. Members opposite are sometimes tempted to put forward. I notice that, in the fairly recent past, not less than three Ministers, the Leader of the House, the Minister of State speaking at the United Nations, and the Minister of National Insurance, the present Chairman of the Labour Party, have all used the same argument. They have said how badly the Russians are behaving and how ungrateful it is of them considering what the present Foreign Secretary did for them in the 1920's.
I beg the House to examine the implications of that argument. If it is a true claim, it means they are asserting that the present Foreign Secretary was able by industrial action in the 1920's


to thwart the will of a Government responsible to an elected House of Commons. If that was right in the 1920's, on what principle do they complain when Comrade Horner and Comrade Pollitt propose to do the same thing today? It is not an argument that can be put by democratic leaders to a democracy. It is the argument that says: "If we win the General Election we will govern through Parliament, more or less, but if you elect the wicked Tories then we shall seek by industrial action to see that your votes are rendered useless." I ask Members, if they are opposed to Communism, to beware of this argument that strengthens the Communist case.
I say that two things are absolutely vital if European civilisation is to survive. The first is that the armed strength of the Communists must be matched by the armed strength of the free, and the second is that the faith of Communism must be matched by belief in the free society.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: It would be very difficult for me in the short time I intend to take up to follow the long line of arguments of the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). As it happens, I have already dealt with all his arguments. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) has in his pocket a Penguin—"The Case for Communism"—and I will send a copy to the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. H. Strauss: I have a copy.

Mr. Gallacher: If the hon. and learned Member has a copy, why did he not tell the House that I have already dealt with every one of his arguments in that Penguin? In order to avoid any misunderstanding, although I dealt with these arguments in the text of the book, I put them down in a series of simple questions with the answers at the end of the book, and they are there for all to see. We now come back to the original discussion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) in a very lugubrious but bellicose speech, talked about how the hand of friendship had been held out to the Soviet Union during the past three years—how kind we were and how generous, and how the hand of friendship was rebuffed. He then jumped

back suddenly to the speech at Fulton, when he was quickly taken up by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Was that the hand of friendship?
We can go further back than that. Before the war, under the Tory Government there was a deliberate policy of building up a Four-Power pact and war against the Soviet Union. Will any Member deny that? Does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley remember that after the present Leader of the Opposition from his seat below the Gangway opposed the war policy of the then Prime Minister the Tories hooted him out of the House? They then formed a guard of honour through which the Prime Minister, Mr. Chamberlain, passed on his way out. The Opposition hooted the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) out of the House because he was opposing the war policy of the then Prime Minister. Mr. Chamberlain was working for a four-Power Pact between Britain, Germany, Italy and France. We heard it said many times that when we got a four-Power Pact we should be able to deal with Russia. In the face of such a situation was it not a desirable policy that Russia should agree to a non-aggression pact with Germany, to break up the possibility of such a combination against herself? There was nothing wrong with that. There was no treaty with Hitler which affected any other nation; there was merely a non-aggression pact to break up the possibility of that combination.
The present Leader of the Opposition, when Prime Minister, said, after the "phoney" war, and the whole of Europe was occupied by Hitler, that we would fight in the streets and on the beaches and, if necessary, from our great Dominions. He and the Government were getting ready to leave the country. Why was it that they did not have to leave the country?

Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: Will the hon. Gentleman say what his party's attitude was at that time?

Mr. Gallacher: All in good time. In August, 1940, Hitler invited Molotov to go to Berlin. If I had known the line which this Debate was to take I would have brought with me a quotation from


"The Times." Hitler tried to get a treaty with Molotov at that time, but Molotov refused to make a concession of any kind to Hitler. What happened? Instead of the mighty German war machine being concentrated across the Channel and being directed against Britain it was steadily built up in the East, to be used against Russia. That is what saved the Government of this country from having to leave Britain and go to our great Dominions across the seas—[Laughter]. Yes, I am giving the House some history. In the Ardennes, when the Germans broke through, General Eisenhower got into touch with the then Prime Minister, and drew attention to the very dangerous situation facing British troops. With whom did the Prime Minister get into touch? He sent a cable to Joseph Stalin, drawing his attention to the danger in the Ardennes, and asking what action he could take to relieve the position. This was at the beginning of 1945. Stalin sent a cable back to say that the weather was against an offensive, that it was impossible for aircraft and artillery to spot targets, but that in view of the difficulties of his Allies he would launch an all-out offensive to engage the forces which Hitler then had at his disposal. What happened then? The Prime Minister sent a cable to Stalin, thanking him in the name of His Majesty the King, the Government, and in his own name, for the magnificent work of the Red Army and the great service it had rendered to the Allies.
It was in 1946, at Fulton, Missouri, that, in line with the big capitalists of America, the Leader of the Opposition declared for war against the working-class of Europe. Where was the hand of friendship in that, after all the services which the Russians rendered? No, let us have no more of this miserable hypocrisy, that the Tories, the capitalists of this country, and those in America, have ever held out the hand of friendship to the people of the Soviet Union.
The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) has said today that the Leader of the Opposition, in making the arrangements that he did with the Americans for the establishment of four-Power control in Berlin, showed that our intentions towards Russia were nothing but peaceful. The exact opposite is the case. The fact that the Russians agreed, without the slightest demur, to Britain,

America and France having military forces in the heart of the Soviet zone is an indication that Russia had nothing but peaceful intentions when the war was over. If Russia had had any of the designs that are talked about, if she had not been desirous for peace, one thing she would not have wanted would have been to have had military forces of other Powers in the heart of her zone in Germany. It should be noted that the U.N.O. Mediation Committee made it clear that their proposals would have brought the difficult situation in Berlin to an end. The Soviet Union accepted their proposals and, in the first instance, we accepted them. But then America rejected them, and Britain fell into line with America.

Mr. S. Silverman: I think this is an important part of my hon. Friend's speech, and I hope he will complete his story. If I have read the papers correctly, it was not only Great Britain who agreed to the proposals but France, too, so that the proposals really came to nothing as a result of a United States veto.

Mr. Gallacher: Yes, I should have mentioned France as well. Acceptance of the Committee's report would have cleared up the situation in Berlin—four-Power control over currency, the lifting of the ban, and all the rest of it. Britain and France accepted, then America refused and, later, Britain and France fell into line. The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean) kept telling us to look at the map. I wish people would look at the map and see to where the American capitalists have got. They are in Iceland, round Greenland, down in the South Seas and across the oceans, up to the Aleutians. There is no part of the world where the American capitalists have not got bases. The American capitalists are not concerned with the British people or with the British workers. In this country we are producing and exporting more than we have ever done. Where are the proceeds going? They are going to big American capitalists.
The other day the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food told the House that we had refused to pay excessive prices to the Argentine for meat and we had also refused to pay in dollars. We are paying excessive prices and in dollars to America. All the extra


labour and toil of the British worker and all the fight for exports which is going on in this country is in order to put bigger profits into the hands of the American capitalists.

Mr. Hollis: Could the hon. Member tell the House whether he voted for or against the American loan?

Mr. Gallacher: I voted for it. I have no objections to this or any other country negotiating a loan. That has nothing to do with the question I am talking about. I am quite sure that Lenin, Stalin, Dimitrov or any of those others would be quite prepared to negotiate a loan with America under given conditions. Why not? But that has got nothing to do with the facts which I am presenting. There would be no need for Marshall Aid if the Americans stopped fleecing this country through high prices and dollar payments. Why does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food declare that we will not submit to dollar payments or excessive prices from the Argentine and yet we are making dollar payments and paying excessive prices to America?

Mr. Gammans: What for?

Mr. Gallacher: America has spread herself all over the place. The Americans are interested only in maintaining capitalism and the profits of capitalism. A statement was issued by Washington on the Atlantic Pact, in which it was stated that any nation or any association of nations dominating Europe and against the interests of America could not be tolerated. That is all that the Pact is for. That means that there could not be an association of Socialist nations in Europe. Such an association is the biggest menace with which America could be faced, for that would finish capitalism in America. American capitalists are determined that there will not be an association of Socialist nations in Europe.
The hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) said, in reply to a question I put to him arising out of his talk about class policy, as to how it was that the Socialists were associated with the big multi-millionaires of America, that we have to fit our economy into that of those who will co-operate with us. Very

good, but let us see what that means. In 1946 the Foreign Secretary in this House made a declaration—nobody asked him to make it—outlining Government policy and he asserted that we were going to nationalise the industries in the British zone of Germany. I ask any Member on this side of the House to tell me what would have happened if that policy had been carried through and the industries in the British zone had been nationalised. There would have been co-operation with the Soviet zone and non co-operation with the American capitalists. In the American, British and French zones there is capitalism rude, rough and glaring.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) described the wealth as well as the poverty that there is in Germany in the industrial areas, but the same wealth is manifest in America and even worse is the poverty, for there are 15 million coloured citizens in America and five or six million poor whites. They are down right at the bottom of the economic scale with no rights of any kind, not even the right to vote.
The hon. Member for Lancaster was very anxious that we should send an army to Greece while there is something left to save. There has been talk in this Debate of the Communists being only 5 per cent. in Germany and in other countries. I ask any hon. Member who knows anything about the character of the struggle by the partisans in Greece whether only a handful of Greek people support them. It is no easy job for them. They endure hardship and suffering of the most appalling character, and opposed to them are a Government supported by America and Britain and financed with millions and millions of dollars. It is impossible to argue that the partisan Greek Democratic Government, only represent 5 per cent. of the people. The Member for Lancaster, who knows all about the Balkans, says we have to get in while there is anything worth saving. It never was possible and it would never have been possible for the Irish Republican Army to carry on the fight against the British Forces but for the fact that the mass of the people were sympathetic to them. In the same way it would be utterly impossible for the partisans and Greek Democratic Government to carry on the struggle


against a Government backed by America and Britain unless the mass of the people were sympathetic towards it.
Let us remember the terrible toll of executions. The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities had the temerity to talk about the Communists and the murdering nations. "Murdering nations" is an easy phrase, but it can be quite meaningless. There is no question about the Greeks and the wholesale murderings of individuals. Mention was made of the changes that took place in the conduct of Members who went from the Front Bench to the back benches, but the change is nothing compared to that of hon. Members who go from the back benches to the Front Bench. I have here a copy of a university magazine from which I want to quote. I can produce the magazine if anybody wants it. I want to quote a line or two in regard to Greece:
All that is important is to observe that in all the liberated countries there is, and will be, a struggle between Right and Left, both sides probably being armed. That there are in this country important elements anxious to support the Right in every case,"—
that is, the Tories—
and that there is in this country and in the U.S.A. a great volume of opinion other than the organised … Liberal, Labour and Communist votes which will oppose these attempts.
Our job is to see that the workers' sides in Europe are identified, and that this large volume of support available to them in this country, in the U.S.A. and in the U.S.S.R. is harnessed to this end.
It seems unlikely to me … that equity and justice have been secured in Athens. Plastiras seems an unlikely choice for such a job, and if an interview granted in The Times' … is to be accepted, the primary concern of the General would seem to be the hunting of the E.L.A.S. For this purpose he needs … 20 divisions. Where they will come from I do not know, but I know one place from which the arms will not come—Britain.
That was written by the Minister of State before he reached the Front Bench.
In this situation we as Members of Parliament or as citizens of this country have to make our position perfectly clear. When the hon. Member for Lancaster was speaking I rose to make an effort to explain my position. I have for 45 years been a revolutionary Socialist at street corners, in public halls and marching up and down in demonstrations of all kinds. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton)

shouted at me "Traitor." No one, whether on this side or the other side of the House, can show where I ever deserted my fellow workers in any circumstances, or where I failed in loyalty to my fellow workers. It was in Westminster Hall that Sir William Wallace was tried and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He said in the course of his defence, words to this effect: "I am accused of being a traitor to Edward I. I can never be a traitor to Edward I for I never gave allegiance to him, and while there is strength in this poor tortured body I never will." I never gave allegiance to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham or to his political conceptions, and I never will.
My allegiance is to the people of this country, to the masses of the workers of this country. This Labour movement was built up to fight for the workers against the capitalists of this country. Not only is it not fighting against them, but it has brought the capitalists of American into this country, and they have also been saddled on, and are exploiting, the people of this country. There is an American zone in England. We will fight to prevent any American zone in Scotland.
I have here a cutting from today's paper about which I tried to put down a Private Notice Question, but it was ruled out of Order. The State Department in America gives the reason for revoking the visas of certain Britishers who were going to a peace conference in New York. What a position for the once great and mighty Britain. The State Department officer says that they investigated each case. Just imagine if this had been someone in Moscow talking about Britishers. The statement added that other people in London checked the records and used every source of information, probably including Scotland Yard. A foreign Government can use Scotland Yard against our own citizens. What a shameful business. How is it that Members of this House can glory in their shame and bow low before the dollar god mammon.
I appeal as a worker. I want to see this country free and independent. [An HON. MEMBER: "So do we"] The Eastern countries are free and independent. [Laughter.] Very well, I will give


hon. Members a test. The President of the Board of Trade has carried on negotiations with the Polish Government and with other Governments. I challenge him or anyone else to say that there is any commodity in Poland which he cannot get from the Polish Government if the British Government desire it. Is that correct or not? There is no interference of any kind from outside. Is that correct or not? But can the Polish Government get any commodity which they want from us? No, because America bars Britain from supplying certain commodities to Poland. The Polish Government are absolutely free but the British Government are not free to do the same so far as Poland is concerned. Which is the satellite? Why will men blind themselves to the truth?
I am for the people of this country, the great masses of the people, not for the privileged few. If the Communists had power, there would be no Tory Party. There would be a working class party.

Mr. H. Hynd: Would there be a Labour Party?

Mr. Gallacher: That process would mean that there would be a people's party. It is impossible for the Communist Party in this or any other country to break the power of the capitalist class. The only force which is strong enough to do that is the organised might of the working class, and sooner or later the organised working class, behind a combination of Labour leaders and Communist leaders, will overcome the capitalist class. There will be one party representing the people, and it will be made up of many who were in the Labour Party and many who were in the Communist Party. It will be one party representing the people, because Socialism requires all the resources of the country to be in the hands of the people.
If all the resources of the country are in the hands of the people there can be no resources in the hands of the Tory Party, and if they have no resources there will be no existence for them. This idea that we can have Socialism with all the resources in the hands of the people and yet have a Tory Party is an utter absurdity. They vanish like an evil thing. I stand for the people of this country and for the elimination of land-

lordism and capitalism. If war should come and foreign troops occupy this country, I will be a partisan fighting against, and for the removal of, the foreign troops.

8.21 p.m.

Major Tufton Beamish: The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) has spoken very well to his usual brief. I sympathise with him for having to speak to a brief which is 101 years old and has never been brought up to date. He may comfort himself with the fact that he is now unlikely to be accused of being a national deviationist, like Gomulka, Tito and Markos. I think that Comrade Stalin, as soon as he knows of the hon. Member's speech, may forgive him for the letter which he wrote in 1920, as was recalled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). The hon. Member for West Fife may comfort himself also with the fact that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who I am sorry to note is not in his place, is working his passage extremely fast into the hon. Member's party.
This is clearly a very important Debate. It was started on an extremely constructive, forthright and statesmanlike note by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan). I could not help feeling that the Minister of State was not up to his usual standard, although with much that he said I agreed. I feel that we are near a turning point in British foreign policy. When I last spoke in a foreign affairs Debate, I concluded by saying that foreign policy, as conducted by this Government, had left our friends in doubt and our enemies laughing at us. I do not retract any of those words or regret them. I was very shocked last December when the Foreign, Secretary announced in the opening sentences of his speech in the big Debate in this House that he would confine himself to speaking about Europe, and did not devote one single word of a speech lasting more than an hour to any of the countries now under Communist domination in Europe. That seemed to me to be typical of the defensive frame of mind in which the Government have been since they came into power.
It is quite clear that everyone in the country and this House, apart from a very


vociferous but insignificant minority, welcomes the Atlantic Pact. It is obviously a great step forward. The question I want to ask this afternoon is: when are we going to stop being on the defensive and go on to the offensive? There seem to be two reasons why we have allowed ourselves to be put on the defensive by international Communism. The first reason has been the wholly mistaken idea of the Socialists that they can conduct British foreign policy on party lines. I am glad to know that there are recent signs that such foolishness is being abandoned. The second reason is our military weakness ever since the war ended. For both reasons, the Government undoubtedly bear a very heavy responsibility indeed.
The hon. Member for West Fife gave us a lot of the usual Communist "hot air." I want to give him an answer in one or two sentences. The hon. Member cannot blink the fact, nor can his comrades opposite, that since the last day of the war, international Communism has succeeded in setting up by force Communist regimes in 11 European capitals, and that in the countries of which these towns are capitals there live 133 million people. He cannot blink the fact that in not one single instance in the world's history has the Communist Party achieved a Parliamentary majority by a free election.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) not aware that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria have a coalition Government in each case and that the party that got the biggest vote in each case at the election was the Communist Party?

Major Beamish: That, of course, happens to be 100 per cent. untrue. Although it is perfectly true that on paper those governments are coalition Governments, I know that Mr. Cyrankiewicz is a lifelong Socialist. I know that that fact gives great comfort to hon. Gentlemen opposite, although it exposes the fact that the real struggle in the world is between Marxism and Christianity. The coalitions to which the hon. Member has referred are Marxist coalitions.

Mr. Gallacher: Excuse me.

Major Beamish: I cannot keep on giving way. The hon. Member has spoken too long already.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: Is it not a fact that Mr. Cyrankiewicz is also a Christian?

Major Beamish: I would not like to say that.
British prestige has suffered a severe diplomatic defeat. I do not think that British prestige has ever sunk so low for a long time indeed. I believe that it has reached its nadir now. I am the first to admit that the Foreign Secretary has been victimised by the disloyalty of a small section of his own party. I said earlier that I thought the Atlantic Pact might be a turning point in British foreign policy. I want to explain as briefly as I can why I think that is so. I recently saw a report in the "Daily Telegraph" of what Mr. Acheson said in reply to a question, which was as follows:
Will not Russian threats now turn against free nations not protected by the Pact?
Mr. Acheson's reply was:
Special assurances will be given—I emphasise 'will'—to countries such as Greece, Turkey and Persia, that there will be no change in the policy of supporting their territorial integrity and political independence.
Words roughly like those were said by our Foreign Secretary on 18th March in this House, when he said, referring to Turkey and Greece:
Our actions in supporting that independence and integrity are clear expressions of our interest in the security of those countries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1949; Vol. 462, c. 2547.]
A much more significant statement was made by the Minister of State when he said that our activities would not be confined to methods previously employed. That gives me some hope that there will be a real change in British foreign policy.

Mr. Scollan: The hon. and gallant Member is hoping for war.

Major Beamish: I should think that we have suffered enough from war for the hon. Member not to make such a foolish interruption. Recently I had the opportunity of going to Greece. I got back only about 10 days ago. I want to warn the House of the dangers of false optimism. I detected a note of some complacency in the speech of the Minister of State today and I cannot help detecting


a note of considerable complacency in a recent statement which Mr. Truman is reported to have made, that because General Papagos has become the commander-in-chief in Greece, the situation is more promising than it has been for some time. Mr. Truman went on to say that there are signs that the balance is shifting against the guerrillas. We can do no greater disservice to the Greeks than by raising false hopes. I was glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley sounded a note of caution on this matter.
The bandit strength in Greece was roughly 20,000, this month last year. As a result of the victories which the Greek army won, it was reduced to about 5,000, and that number withdrew into Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, but today the bandit strength is back at 23,500, about the same figure at which it stood this month last year. The Greek army has to fight the same battles all over again with every prospect of the same thing happening after they have won their victory. Let us face it. We might as well accept the reality of the situation.
The bandits are extremely bold. I arrived in Salonika a few weeks ago, only three hours after they had raided the American Agricultural College about one and a half miles from the town of Salonika and only 1,000 yards from a British battalion in barracks. Forty-two boys and girls of between 17 and 20 years of age were taken away at the point of Sten and Tommy guns into the hills to be forcibly recruited by the bandits. Half escaped during the night, and I interviewed some of them. The remainder will either fight for the bandits after being reeducated in Marxism in Eastern Europe or carry stores for them. If any of the boys and girls still with the bandits escape, they know that their parents will be murdered.
That is what it means to live in Greece, and that happened a couple of miles from Salonika and a thousand yards from a British battalion. That shows bow bold the bandits are. I went to many other places which I will not describe to the House but I will mention that at Naoussa, 650 young boys and girls were taken away by the bandits and five factories employing 4,000 men were destroyed, and factory

managers and public officials were murdered.
Although the situation is rather gloomy at the moment, there are credits. For instance, we have seen the disappearance —I nearly said "the death" because it seems likely that it was the death—of General Markos, and his replacement by a man who is known to be loyal to the Kremlin. We have seen the victory in the Peloponnese, which has been a very well conducted campaign. We have seen the bandits over-confident at Florina only a few weeks ago, when well over 1,000 bandits were killed and the Greeks forced them to withdraw without themselves moving out of the town. All is not debit, there are some credits; but Greece cannot continue to fight for ever. The sooner that is realised by hon. Members opposite who think they can do so, the better. They have fought solidly for eight years.
As to the economic situation in Greece, I will give one or two figures which may be of interest. In August, 1939, an oke of bread cost 9.7 drachmae and today it costs 3,800. An oke of soap cost 32 drachmae in August, 1939, and today it costs 12,500. A kilo of coal cost 2.3 drachmae in August, 1939, and today it costs 1,640. Prices are roughly 350 times higher than in August, 1939. The cost of living index based on 1938 as 100, was 24,500 in December, 1948. Those figures may give hon. Members who are not closely in touch with the situation some indication of the success achieved by international Communism in Greece.
As to a solution in Greece, this is how I see the problem. I hope that whoever replies to the Debate, if he deals with nothing else in my speech, will give answers to the following points. First, do His Majesty's Government appreciate the urgent and vital necessity for a bigger Greek army?

Mr. Scollan: More troops for Greece.

Major Beamish: It is the opinion of all the military experts in Greece to whom I spoke, whether they were American or British, that a ceiling figure of 300,000 would be by no means too big. We have to face up to that. Secondly, about the air force, do His Majesty's Government admit that Spitfires promised to the Royal Hellenic Air Force—which has done wonders and fought brilliantly and whose


pilots are fine—more than four months ago, have not been delivered, and that there has been no explanation of the delay? I think we are entitled to an answer to that question as well. Lastly, with regard to the Navy, a great deal of help could be given in the way of small, fast craft to the Greek Navy.
I want also to ask the Government whether they appreciate that after eight years of war it is too much to go on plugging away at the old theme of a broad-based coalition Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was a dictator in wartime in this country; every man jack of us willingly gave him those powers, and we would have given him more if we could. President Roosevelt was a dictator in America, and he was willingly given those powers; but neither the Americans nor the British were fighting in their own home towns for their own lives—

Mr. Scollan: That is not true.

Mr. Follick: Of course we were.

Major Beamish: In comparison with Greece they were not. The hon. Gentleman knows nothing about conditions in Greece—

Mr. Scollan: What about the thousands killed in London?

Major Beamish: The Greeks are fighting our war for us, and I hope the Government realise that if this coalition—which is an excellent one, and the best possible under the circumstances—does not prove equal to the task of fighting the war with undivided attention, it may be necessary for the Greek Parliament to agree—and I think they would agree—to a tougher and smaller regime, not necessarily including all parties.

Mr. Tiffany: The answer to Communism then, is totalitarianism?

Mr. Gallacher: You want Fascism, then?

Major Beamish: That is the sort of bright remark the hon. Member usually makes. I might give this analogy: democracy has been likened to the perfect wife—lovely but not fast—and there is no doubt at all that the Greeks have to move very fast in the months to come.

Do not let us make the mistake of looking at Greece in isolation from her neighbours, the Balkans. The whole Balkan situation is one situation and it is linked, in my opinion, with the situation in the Middle East. The essence of the problem in Greece is obviously the sealing of the Greek frontiers. That has been said from this side of the House on countless occasions by hon. and right hon. Members who have been out there and have seen conditions for themselves.
I want to say a word about Albania, a country about which it is extremely difficult to get any accurate information, although I have done my best to find out a little. Albania undoubtedly occupies geographically a vitally strategic position, both for international Communism and for the democracies. There is no doubt at all that the Albanians have failed to reach their industrial targets consistently during the last two years, and that they have failed badly. They have blamed the Yugoslav Trotskyites—those are their words. Their production of oil has fallen short of what they aimed at; they are short of machinery for the oil wells—most of the oil was going to Yugoslavia, but it is not going there now. They are short of coal, and the Russian ships are taking coal. They are short of iron—the Russian ships are taking iron. They are short of fuel, of electric power, because they have not the machinery. They are very short of yarn for their textile machinery. They were getting it from Yugoslavia, but she did not deliver the goods. There is a serious shortfall in timber. They are short of railway lines, and the whole of their railway building scheme has been held up until a Russian ship arrived. They are short of rolling stock and agricultural machinery. They are having serious labour troubles. I can assure hon. Members that these are facts which I have taken the trouble to find out.
There are also violent upheavals going on inside Albania. Only a day or two ago I read in the "Daily Telegraph":
Soviet officers and N.C.O.s wearing Albanian uniform are directing operations against rebel bands in the country… clashes are occurring almost daily in the Jugoslav-Albanian frontier area… these frontier guerrillas are operating independently of other bands of political outlaws in the interior of Albania. Both groups have intensified their sallies during the past three weeks.


I believe that to be a fact. The Albanian army, under its Soviet instructors, is giving direct help, as we all know, to Joannides, who has replaced General Markos. This direct Russian help—this direct help of the Albanian Army, backed and trained by the Russians—is, as we all know, in direct and flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter. I want to ask the Government this question: how long will the Atlantic Pact signatories allow Albania—responsible, incidentally, for the murder of British sailors, for which there has been no apology and compensation—to continue to sabotage the recovery of Europe; and how long will we fail to take full advantage of the situation I have so briefly described? I hope that when the Minister replies he can, at least, say something about this.
I cannot in the time available say more than the briefest word about Yugoslavia, which was touched upon by the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean). I hope we shall not make the mistake of thinking that Marshal Tito will soon patch up his row with the Kremlin. His crime was lack of discipline, but he is none the less still a violent and aggressive Marxist. Do not let us make the mistake of bolstering him up unnecessarily and thinking he is going to be a direct friend of ours without, at any rate, some perfectly well-defined quid pro quo. As regards Bulgaria I want to refer only to one sentence from the statement of the Minister of State in the House on 16th March, when, speaking of the Bulgarian violation of the military clauses of the Treaty, he said:
Bulgaria has also been unwilling to allow inspection of the Greco-Bulgarian frontier where she is forbidden by the Peace Treaty to erect permanent fortifications."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1949; Vol. 462. c. 2121–2.]
Bulgaria has been unwilling to allow Great Britain and the Americans to inspect the frontier area, a duty which we have under the Treaty.

Mr. Scollan: What a shame.

Major Beamish: That is just how low British prestige has sunk in Eastern Europe. The Atlantic Pact is clearly only a beginning. That is why I said earlier that I thought we were at a turning point in policy. But there is much more to

be done, and time is not on our side. The longer we delay the graver will be the risks we run and the more will Russian influence increase. What we have got to do is to close the back door.
In Greece, Turkey, Syria, the Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and in Pakistan, to almost all of which countries I have been in the last eight weeks, there are Governments which are strongly opposed to the further encroachment of international Communism. I am very glad indeed that the Government have shown themselves well apprised of the importance of improving the situation which we have seen develop in the last few days. In my opinion, all these countries are ready and anxious to respond to an immediate approach by this country in co-operation with the United States of America and, probably, with the other signatories of the Atlantic Pact. As a result of my six weeks in the Arab countries and the Middle East, during which time I saw almost all the Arab leaders and had long private talks with them, I am convinced that it is urgently vital that we should now make a new approach in the Mediterranean area, the North Mediterranean coast and the Middle East, on the lines I have suggested and that the Moslem countries would be extremely receptive to any such approach.
Do not let us for one second delude ourselves into thinking that if we wake up one morning and find Greece behind the Iron Curtain it will not have a terrible effect on other countries. Only in recent weeks I know that international Communism, directed by the Cominform, has been dropping arms and equipment for Italian Communists under Signor. Togliatti, to make up for the arms and equipment taken from them by the police under the Christian Democratic Government. If Greece goes bad, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there is every likelihood of the Communists trying the same technique, that is civil war, in Italy and the effect on Turkey might be equally disastrous in a country which is forced, because of the Russian war of nerves, to keep a million men under arms. The Communist fifth columnists everywhere are well armed.
May I conclude with some constructive suggestions on how to go from the defensive to the offensive. I think the Greeks are tired of words of comfort and tired


of eight years of war. They want to know that we appreciate that they are fighting our war and that we will help them to win it. Secondly, let us fight the cold war for all we are worth and let us have no more appeasement. Stop the conspiracy of silence as to the real nature of Marxism and expose our own defeatists in this House and fellow-travellers—although, curiously enough, they seem to be getting less talkative as the Election approaches and are conspicuous today by their absence—or most of them are. Let us revive the Political Warfare Executive, which did such good work during the war. Let broadcasting play its vitally important function as one of the cutting weapons of democracy for telling the truth to the Marxists. Let us revise the policy of trading with the enemy. I am glad that the Minister of State made it clear that there are to be new developments in this direction. I will read an extract from the programme of the Communist International, dated 1st September, 1928. It is headed:
The significance of the U.S.S.R. and her world revolutionary duties";
and says:
The simultaneous existence of two economic systems; the Socialist system in the U.S.S.R. and the capitalist system in other countries, imposes on the Proletarian State the task of warding off the blows showered upon it by the capitalist world (boycott, blockade, etc.), and also compels it to resort to economic manoeuvring with and utilising economic contacts with capitalist countries (with the aid of the monopoly of foreign trade—which is one of the fundamental conditions for the successful building up of Socialism, and also with the aid of credits, loans, concessions, etc.). The principal and fundamental line to be followed in this connection must be the line of establishing the widest possible contact with foreign countries—within limits determined by their usefulness to the U.S.S.R.
That is something of which the Government might take careful note. Let us proceed to put teeth into the Atlantic Pact and be in a constant state of armed readiness, which is our greatest, and perhaps, our only safeguard. Also let us close the backdoor and realise at least that the never-disguised aim of international Communism has been, and always will be, world domination and that they have gone a long way in achieving that aim. I am convinced, and I have often said this, that there is no probability of peace in the world until international Communism has rolled back to its pre-1939 boundaries and until we

realise that the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements are both dead letters. As I said earlier, the struggle in the world is clearly one between Christianity and Marxism—Maxism based on class hatred and atheism.

Mr. Harold Davies: Rubbish!

Major Beamish: There is no half-way house, and if any hon. Members opposite think there is, they are no less dangerous than those who are convinced, dyed-in-the-wool Communists.
The Foreign Secretary knows that he has the support of all in this country who rate British interests above those of foreign Powers in any action he takes to regain the initiative by turning on the heat in the cold war and by giving urgent and maximum support to Greece in cooperation with our American friends. I believe that if we do not use the next five years to wipe out the severe diplomatic and military defeats that the democracies have suffered during the last four years, and since this Government came into power, it may mean—and I believe this most sincerely—the end of Christian civilisation in Europe, in our time.

Mr. Harold Davies: Another war would mean the end of Christian civilisation.

Major Beamish: I entirely agree, and that is why I am making this speech, with the object of avoiding such a ghastly tragedy. Let the Foreign Secretary go forward to consolidate the positions he has recently won, and which we are beginning to take up, and let him then go on to the offensive. The stakes are enormous, and if we lose, we lose all.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I feel sure the House will be in agreement that the Opposition has been fully justified in raising this important subject tonight. We have had a very interesting Debate, a livelier Debate than I, at any rate, imagined it would be. We have had a series of very useful and powerful speeches from both sides of the House, and we are still to have the privilege of listening to the Foreign Secretary wind up the Debate.
It is my duty to sum up the case as we have desired to put it from this side of


the House. Prior to the Foreign Secretary going to America for a series of what may be very important conversations on very important subjects, it has been our desire to sum up certain matters which lie outside the conclusion of that Atlantic Pact we were talking about on Friday afternoon. I should like to make clear that it is the desire of the House to discuss the Pact after it has been signed overseas at Washington. I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will give us that assurance and thereby save me, among others, from having to refer to it in greater detail tonight.
It has been our desire to consider British policy as it affects that immense border or curtain ranging from North to South, along which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) has described, the cold war is being fought. In this question of East and West I wish to make it clear, first of all, and quite categorically, that it is not we on this side of the House who wish to crystallise the issue between East and West and make further negotiation of any sort impossible. That would be a wrong policy at the present time. It is not our desire to make this curtain so impenetrable that no action, or counteraction, can occur. It is our desire to see, if possible, that openings are afforded to our diplomats and statesmen to take advantage of every occasion to promote the cause of peace and better realisation while there is time. That was the main reason for the Debate. While we have rightly been critical about the Government in many ways in their conduct and policy I wish to make that point of view quite clear at the outset of my remarks.
Another reason for our asking for this Debate and using the one privilege which the Opposition has—that is, of naming the subjects for Parliamentary Debate on days like this when we are considering the Consolidated Fund Bill—was the statement of the Minister of State about the satellite Treaties, which was made in the House last week. I said at the time on behalf of the Opposition that we agreed with the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, but we have since been even more critical than I was on that occasion, about certain matters which appear to arise out of his statement. If I may say so without borrowing a term

from the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton)— without making any wounding observations—I was not entirely satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman added very much to our thought on this matter in his oration today. But I have been in similar positions myself on the Government Front Bench and I am hoping that he left all the plums for his chief to give us following upon my remarks. At any rate, we expect a great deal more from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs than we have hitherto had by way of answer from the Government.
The Minister of State assured us when he referred to these Treaties, that despite the fact that the 18 months' period is over—and that means it is no longer necessary for us to work in collaboration, for example, with the Soviet Union as a signatory—he still hopes that there may be a chance of so implementing these Treaties that valuable results may follow. Let us first take the case of Greece which has been referred to so well by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) and by other speakers in the course of this Debate. What is the position of Greece? In 1941 Bulgaria invaded Greece for the third time within 30 years and pillaged the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thrace. The Peace Treaty provided, among other things, for the restitution to Greece of confiscated property—such matters as railway rolling stock and looted livestock—and for reparations to be paid by Bulgaria for the damage done by Bulgarian troops. In addition Bulgaria's frontier with Greece was to be demilitarised.
Not one of these obligations has been fulfilled. The position is not only bad in the sense that I have stated it but, as we know, Greece is still fighting for her life. Despite the cautious words used by the Minister of State, we cannot see in the position of Greece any redeeming features at present. None of the obligations of the Treaty has been fulfilled. The Greek Government have informed the Allied Governments that Bulgaria is methodically re-arming and constructing fortifications in areas which, according to the Peace Treaty, should have been demilitarised. Demands by British and American diplomatic representatives in Sofia for an investigation have been refused by Bulgaria on the ground that


the Soviet representative was not in agreement. We have now reached a position in which, by the lapsing of the 18 months' period in regard to these Treaties, it is not necessary to have the agreement of the Soviet representative.
I wish to put this point to the Foreign Secretary. Are we to take it from the speech of the Minister of State, and the inference which I think we could draw from it, that in fact publicity is the only benefit we shall get by trying to implement the clauses of these Treaties? Or are we to hope that something can be done, for example, under Article 12 read with Article 35 of the Bulgarian Treaty which I hold in my hand? Are we to hope that something effective can be done to save the frontier of Greece and to save Greece at present? If that is not possible under these Treaties, I put it to the House that the great danger to British policy is that we get so cluttered up with being ineffectively bound by inoperative treaties, we waste so much of our time in argument at U.N.O. and other places where no good is being done at present to international relations, that we lose sight of the real interests of the United Kingdom.
In our attempts to seek legal advice from our advisers and to interpret this treaty that way and that treaty this way, we are in fact forgetting the real interests of our country and are not taking the most effective steps for peace. There is nothing more dangerous than that, as was pointed out in the famous Eyre Crowe Memorandum from the Foreign Office in 1906, on which most of our foreign policy has since been based, we should undertake commitments which we have not got either the strength or ability to carry out.
That is the great difficulty in which this House is placed in discussing whether these Treaties are in fact any good to us or not. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in face of the obvious Soviet move referred to in today's leading article in "The Times" and also in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley—a move which is designed to take the Macedonian portion of Yugoslavia from that country and the Macedonian portions from Greece and the surrounding countries—can be countered by invoking those parts of the Bulgarian Treaty. Articles 12 and 35, which give

us the opportunity of inspection, and, in particular, the opportunity of inspecting the Bulgarian frontier? If that is not possible, I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman would be right to bring a more practical mind to bear and dismiss these Treaties as being useless for our purposes at present. Unless we can save Greece this summer, we may forfeit the whole position of the Middle East, and one of the most valuable counters between us and the Powers of the East.
I have had my attention drawn to a matter of great importance concerning these Treaties. There is on the Order Paper of this House a very important Motion on the subject of religion and religious persecution which deals with the case of Cardinal Mindszenty, which I do not want to go into tonight, but which is supported by a great many hon. Members of this House. This Motion goes on to say:
Further, this House expresses its alarm and grave concern at the advancing tide of persecution of the Christian Church in Eastern Europe and urges His Majesty's Government to use all possible means to secure the release of Cardinal Mindszenty and to affirm and maintain the sacred right of all men to freedom of worship.
This also raises the Declaration of Human Rights and the possibility of dealing with this question under Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations before a court. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if, in respect of these Treaties, as appeared from the answer given by the Under-Secretary on 1st December, he can do anything about the Greek-Bulgarian frontier as to building up. I also want to ask whether the Treaties provide the means of preserving human rights and freedom of religious worship as the people desire to render that worship. I think it is most important that in this Debate, which has only touched upon this subject, we should indicate to the Government the intense public feeling which there is on this question in this country.
If the right hon. Gentleman can honestly and conscientiously say that the speech of the Minister of State, as interpreted by us, is true and that the only hope of invoking these Treaties is to attract world publicity to these abuses, let him say so in frank and definite language and we shall know where we are. If that be the case, I would suggest


to him, as I mentioned on Friday afternoon, when he announced the decision about the signature of the Atlantic Pact, that something is wanted in the Middle Eastern area, and particularly in the realm of Greece and Turkey, to implement and carry further the conclusions of the Atlantic Pact. It would seem to me that it is highly necessary for us that our Government should get together with the Government of the United States and the State Department, and make some announcement following upon the Atlantic Pact which will indicate that we are in earnest and that we propose to collaborate, in a way which the right hon. Gentleman can no doubt discuss with the American Secretary of State, and thus implement our desire to save Greece before the summer is out. I therefore wish the Foreign Secretary well in his visit to America. I hope that he will give us an undertaking that this question of Middle Eastern strategy, and particularly the question of Greece, will be discussed by him with the American Secretary of State.
This reference to political questions, to questions of human rights, and to questions of religious freedom leads me to consider for a few minutes questions of East-West trade, which is another reason why we raised this subject in debate this evening. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State said that there were no blacks and whites, and certainly his speech indicated a vast area of grey in which we were barely able to distinguish any emerging features. He said in his statement about these treaties, in answer to our request, that the ex-enemy States—these small countries—have, in collusion with the U.S.S.R. persistently enacted laws or imposed measures,which, even though nominally non-discriminatory in form, have, in intention and effect, been aimed at Western commercial interests in general, and against British interests in particular. That is the truth coming from the Government.
I then asked the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the circumstances, the President of the Board of Trade proposed to go on making trade agreements with those countries whose habits were described in so unfriendly a way—and so accurately described—by the right hon. Gentleman. He referred me, according

to the usual "passed to you" tactics of any Government, to the President of the Board of Trade, and up to now, unlike jesting Pilate, I am waiting for my answer. I am hoping to get it from the Foreign Secretary tonight. Is it the intention of the Government, despite this description of the attitude towards East-West trade made by the right hon. Gentleman himself, to contract new trade agreements with these countries?
The right hon. Gentleman said today that an announcement had been made on 15th February that there was an export licence system and that there would be a new range of goods which would shortly be brought under control, but he was unable to tell me whether any conclusion had been reached in the matter for reasons which he gave, and which I think were understandable. At the same time, we know from the Foreign Assistance Act, 1948, of the United States, that in Article 17D the administrator is directed to refuse delivery, in so far as practicable, to participating countries of commodities which go into the production of any commodity for delivery to any non-participating European country—that involves the Eastern countries—which would be refused export licences to countries by the United States in the interests of national security.

Mr. Solley: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Article 17D; it should have been Article 117.

Mr. Butler: I said 117, and I am obliged to the hon. Member for his interruption. Perhaps my voice did not reach him satisfactorily, but I am glad to see that he is so well informed on this matter.
What I was saying was that, taking this Article of the Foreign Assistance Measure of the United States, together with the British statement that after 15th February certain articles are to be brought under control, can we on this side of the House take it that no trade agreement will be concluded with an Eastern European country which involves commodities that are governed either by the Foreign Assistance Measure of the United States or involves commodities which may be used in war provision or to further future wars. If so, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether a list of such


articles is being drawn up, because this leads me to my next point, that we have not yet had an answer from the Government whether, under the existing circumstances of the cold war, they intend to go on delivering reparations to Russia from Germany, and whether they intend to go on delivering reparations to Czechoslovakia.
It really is a preposterous situation that when, in the terms of the Government's own statement by the Minister of State, the situation is being treated with contumely by the Governments of Eastern Europe, we should go on deliberately encouraging trade with them in articles which may be used for war production and for the purpose of war. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can finally and at last give us the undertaking that, in fact, further reparations to Russia from Germany will cease, and not only from Germany to Russia but from Germany to Czechoslovakia and other countries behind the Iron Curtain. I wish to be perfectly reasonable because we are discussing matters of the utmost importance to our own country. I do not ask that all trade between East and West shall be stopped. It would be quite unreasonable that we should not attempt to conduct trade agreements where matters can be conducted in such a way that we do not include capital goods designed for war potential to the East. We should have a definite undertaking from the Government that trade in war potential will stop.
In my concluding remarks I want to refer to Germany itself. The right hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) referred to the Humphrey Committee on Reparations. I want to ask the Government whether, on this question of reparations, they are beginning to take the advice so freely tendered to them by the hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Birch), and so frequently given to them, to try to bring this question to a head and have done with it. The Humphrey Committee has recommended that 167 plants of the revised reparations list should be reprieved. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government have accepted that recommendation, which we understand has the support of Mr. Hoffman, and what is their decision about the future of merchant ship building in Germany—not so much from the merchant navy angle, but from the merchant ship

building angle? It always seems to us, on this side of the House, ridiculous that in the case of a merchant ship which may be built for the purpose of going out to obtain fish for the German population to eat, we should not allow that building to continue in the interests of the general recovery of Western Germany at the present time. We think it is high time that we brought an end to this question of reparations and that the Government gave us some definite answer whether they have accepted the general decision of the Humphrey Committee that there shall be an upper limit for steel, whether 10.6 million tons or 10.7 million tons, which we understand to be the figure of that committee.
In dealing with Germany I want to make this plea: that we get on as a Government with the task of linking a living Germany with a living Europe. The time for de-Nazification, for this short-sighted reparations policy, in particular for reparations being delivered to the East, must cease. The time is now, with our imagination, to link a living and reviving Germany with the Western conception which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has himself done so much to forward.
As the right hon. Gentleman wishes to begin his speech shortly, I do not propose to spend any time on the question of public ownership. I realise that hon. Members opposite are dedicated to this idea. I realise, at the same time, that putting the Ruhr or the German industries under public control gives a much better opportunity to a nationalist revival in Germany to use those industries for war purposes. But, whether that question be decided or not, what I am anxious to see is that the Ruhr region itself proceeds from the present negative position of the Ruhr Statute, which I do not think is consistent with German dignity, to a further development, and that the further development shall be on these lines: that the German potential of the Ruhr, shall be integrated, on an international scale, with the potential of Lorraine, the economic set-up of Benelux and with those nations of Europe which can work with this unit, to make the economic situation of Europe better than it has been in the past. In that way French public opinion would be satisfied, and we should begin to create an


economic future for Europe on a scale which we Europeans have never before envisaged. I believe that if we proceed on these lines there is some hope for the future.
My final question to the right hon. Gentleman is this: does he propose to build up the economic life of Europe on the basis of the machinery of O.E.E.C., or does he propose to follow the advice of the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe? Does he propose to bring together all the little bits of machinery under the Brussels Pact, and the other arrangements that have been made to bring the nations together, or will it all be concentrated in O.E.E.C.? If it is concentrated in O.E.E.C., will he use the initiative given us by Marshall Aid to enable us to create an economic future for Europe on a scale which will add to Europe's prosperity and enable her to use her goods ultimately to the best advantage? I think it is time that the right hon. Gentleman gave us a picture of what he has in mind for linking Germany with Western Europe and making the two a living reality. If we can do that I hope he will take us a stage further. We believe that we now have a priceless opportunity to build something for the future which will save the peace, not only in our time but for future generations. We have shown by our own Commonwealth that we in this country have power of leadership, and it should be our duty, by means of the Atlantic Pact and the economic building up of Europe, to turn our own Commonwealth of nations into a Commonwealth of Civilisation.
If we do that in the spirit of my opening remarks—that we should look for every opportunity of easing the situation, avoid appeasement by sending war potential to the East and maintain trade which is healthy to nations on both sides of the Iron Curtain—I believe that we shall have taken a step towards relieving the anxieties of our people, who are looking to the summer with fear because they are wondering what will come next. We give the Foreign Secretary our best wishes for his journey to America; we trust that he will take all practical steps possible to make agreements with the American Government, and that he will report when he returns so that we may have a Debate.

9.18 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): If I tried to answer every point which has been raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler), the House would be in for a very long lecture. I thank him for his good wishes for my projected visit to the United States. Most of the problems he talked about are not merely on the agenda at Washington, but have been on the agenda for a very long time. We are constantly exchanging views about them, but it is not as easy as making a speech to persuade Governments with different ideas, and to secure agreement among them about action which ought to be taken. I take the view that if German industry before Hitler, had been owned by the public instead of by Krupps, there would never have been a war. I cannot see the German people, with the control of those industries in their hands, handing the money over to Hitler to build up a party fund to destroy them. I base my case on that, and other people on both sides of the ocean are coming round rapidly to that point of view.
I want to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) for my absence when he opened this Debate. As a matter of fact I was at the office discussing these very problems with the American Ambassador. I was trying to get through those discussions in order to come over here. The inference I drew from the notes I have read—and I should like to get this clear because we want to get understanding about this business—was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley wanted to do just the contrary of the statement which has been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden, for he wanted a complete blockade of Eastern Europe.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but if that was the information given to him by whoever took the notes it was completely incorrect. HANSARD will have on record what I said. I made my points very clear, and the Minister of State, in answering me, accepted the formula which I put before the House. He repeated my own words. He took my statement and my definition, and he said


that he agreed with everything I had stated.

Mr. Gallacher: Which shows how far he has fallen.

Mr. Bevin: If the Minister of State and the right hon. Gentleman agree, I must be wrong, but as I followed the trend of his speech right the way through, it suggested that there should be a blockade of Eastern Germany in some form or other. That means sanctions, and sanctions mean war.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is the point we made at the time of Abyssinia.

Mr. Bevin: That takes us back to Abyssinia.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: That is where I came in.

Mr. Bevin: And that is where one of my predecessors went out. Sanctions should never be applied unless we have made up our minds to carry them through to their logical conclusion. Sanctions in this case would have meant war. When the breakdown of the Four-Power Conference occurred and when the blockade of Berlin took place, all these things naturally were considered in all their aspects. The United States and ourselves put on the air lift. That resistance to the Russian attempt to drive us out of Eastern Germany by forcing us out of Berlin was the first arrest of the onward march. It has been cheap. One year's cost of the air lift is equal to the cost of one day of war. By it we have maintained a population of 2½ million; we have built up the morale of Germany, a very important factor, and I doubt if it has really cost America and ourselves anything compared with what the cost would have been in military effort had Russia reached the Rhine. If we had left Berlin the difficulty which would have faced us of holding Western Germany would have been a very serious matter. The morale of the Germans would have gone, our whole position in Germany would have been jeopardised; the morale of France would have been shaken, and I am not too sure what the situation in Italy would have been. The cost which would have fallen upon the Western Powers if the air lift had not been undertaken is impossible to estimate.
Therefore, the attitude which we have adopted in dealing with Germany is as follows: We have, as I have said, tried to get Four-Power agreement. I have to accept responsibility for the Four-Power procedure because I was a Member of the Coalition Government which agreed to it, and I do not go back on anything that was done. I have to accept what was done at Yalta because it was reported to us and we accepted it. Hence I have never criticised it. I have had to accept what was done at Potsdam before we arrived there, which was when the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite made way for us to occupy their seats. Accordingly the whole background of post-war Germany was Four-Power collaboration. With all respect, that seems to have been forgotten in the Debate today.
This attitude was pursued until November, 1947. I think we were right to pursue it. There have been inferences that we should have broken off our efforts earlier. It was not appeasement; it was a real effort on the part of the United States, France and ourselves to get agreement. It was a real effort in the belief that it could be achieved. I would say in connection with the Balkan Treaties that when they were signed I believed that they would be kept; I had every reason to believe that. Russia is a difficult country but in other respects she has not broken her agreements. Where she has broken her agreements has been in the political field, not in trade and other respects, where she has kept her agreements, as I think all commercial people will agree. There seems to have been in the last few years in the field to which I refer a different morality from that in the other fields in which we have had experience of Russia. I think that has been a tragedy and will prove to be a tragedy in the end for Russia herself.
Having pursued this course of action and having failed to secure Four-Power agreement, we set out to build up a Western German Government. I was asked what point we had reached in regard to the Bonn Statute and the Occupation Statute. We have not reached finality, but I am glad to be able to tell the House that the matter has now been narrowed down to two or three outstanding points. My view is that the three of us must bend our energies, take a big view, overcome these troubles among


ourselves and get the Germans to carry out their own administration at the earliest possible date. I have been working on that very hard for weeks. Hon. Members say that we can build up this, that and the other thing, and that France and other countries will agree, but, believe me, we do not get over the history of Europe quite so easily. There are deep-seated fears and prejudices in the Parliamentary situation in those other countries, and it takes an enormous amount of time and work to overcome the problems.
The three Powers are, however, drawing very close together in their policy towards Germany. I cannot enumerate—I do not think hon. Members would ask me to enumerate them—the disputed points which are now under negotiation, but I regard them as the smallest part of our difficulties in comparison with those which we have already overcome. In that connection I appreciated very much the speech of the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter). I know the feeling about reparations but I ought to say that neither this Government nor even the previous Government are to blame for the reparations trouble. The policy of both Governments before 1945 and afterwards was to settle this question in 2½ years. That was a basic consideration. We did not want to have the problem dragging on and to have difficulties hanging over either the Germans or ourselves.
I had first of all to get away from the conception of a level of steel production capacity of 3.8 million tons. I had to get away from the pastoralisation policy proposed by Mr. Morganthau at that time. It took, in fact, nearly 2½ years before the level of 10.7 million tons was accepted. I am not talking egotistically. I worked with my colleagues in the coalition Government on this steel problem, and we have never moved an inch from the basis laid down in 1944 as the point below which we should not let the German level of industry fall. Therefore, if I have been guilty of a sin it must be the sin of consistency in my attitude towards reparations in both Governments, a unique feature for a politician.
The next point with which I have to deal is the Humphrey Committee's

Report. The line taken by the United States in this matter has been difficult to reconcile with the views of France and the I.A.R.A. countries. It has taken some time to resolve the difficulties which have resulted from this. I was hoping to be able to announce agreement today but there still remain to be settled two or three points which are rather vital to the countries concerned. I think that by the time we get to Washington they will probably have been disposed of. Like other hon. Members who have spoken today, I want to see this business finally cleared up and to know exactly what plants are to be left in Germany. It has been a very embarrassing situation for our Military Governor because he has had to handle the dismantling problem in the British zone where the bulk of these plants exist, and hence we have had most of the trouble.
With regard to shipbuilding, I did not quite know whether the right hon. Gentleman was putting it to me that there should be no restrictions on shipbuilding at all. There is a great conflict of opinion about that. We did that in 1924, and while I am hoping that Germany will be spiritually and politically alive to the West, we hoped so then, but we then allowed an enormous capacity which was all turned into submarines. I recollect agreements made by the Government of the day for 10,000-ton battleships. Agreements, moreover, unknown to France, which created a very bad situation. I also remember the subsidy by the Germans on construction at that time which made our shipyards completely idle and rendered the Clyde almost stagnant by a quite unfair method.
If these powers are to be handed over to Germany we must not forget the security of these Islands. While I want to do everything I can to rehabilitate the Germans it must be remembered that we have had two wars. That is a vital thing. If it is a question of building up the coastal tonnage first, the fishing tonnage—that is vital. Even then, however, we have to consider the question of speeds. We would be quite wrong to take no notice at all of our naval advisers, and it would be quite wrong if we did not consider carefully the type of ship. Some ships can be converted to aircraft carriers quite easily, other ships


can be so built that they can be converted fairly quickly, and with modern speeds all these security problems have to be looked at carefully.
Now that question arises under the prohibitive and limited industries, and it is being considered carefully. There are certain types of industry in Germany to which, on security grounds, His Majesty's Government cannot consent until Germany has worked her passage back into the comity of nations and can be trusted.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman is aware that I made specific reference to fishing tonnage in my remarks?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, but fishing is only one type. There is cargo tonnage, and there are other kinds. And there is the capacity of the shipyards, the capacity of repairs, spares, and all those things. We are discussing the whole matter with the United States but, as I have said, my difficulty with the United States in the last few weeks on shipbuilding has been the question of security, and I have refused to raise the question of competition, provided the wages and conditions are correct. I do not think we ought to allow a position in Western Europe where this vital industry, affecting the security of our country, can be jeopardised by the ability of an ex-enemy country to use conditions or methods inferior to our own to subsidise themselves or to upset our arrangements. The House will not want me to weary it with all the other prohibited industries. I have made a general statement.
I was asked, in respect of Berlin, why we did not allow Berlin in the Bonn discussion. We did allow them to attend, we did allow them to express a view, we did permit them to have a liaison, but we have taken the view—I think the right view—that we will not despair of a united Germany yet. I believe that Eastern Germany and Western Germany will unite. I do not think that anyone can stop it. That will come.

Mr. Harold Davies: It will have to.

Mr. Bevin: It may take time, but it will come. Therefore, the question to be decided was, what part should Berlin play? I think our decision was correct.

Reference was made to the currency problem. The first currency difficulty in regard to Berlin, of course, was the result really of introducing the monetary reform in the Western zone. The blockade started, and Four-Power control of the currency was refused. Had we allowed that situation to continue, we should have been driven out of Berlin, not by the blockade of the railways, but by the use of the currency. Therefore, we had to introduce the new currency. Since that time we have tried to get this thing straightened out. We have given a lot of opportunities for it to be settled, but at the same time the splitting of the city has been going on in every other form of administration. Hence, in the end, it got to a point that any talk of a uniform currency was absolutely impracticable of administration; so we have introduced the Western mark for the Western parts of Berlin. The change went off very smoothly. As far as I can see, it is working extremely well and I think it will result in improving the standards in Berlin.
We had to do this for another reason. We have had a new appreciation, both of the needs of the air lift and of the amount of tonnage needed to maintain the standard of life. The monetary system had a very vital connection with that. It is the intention of the United States to step up the air lift to a much higher target. I do not like to name any target in case it is not reached, especially in view of weather conditions and so on, but it is considerably higher than anything we have achieved yet. We intend to use the summer months to build up stocks, production and all the rest in Berlin so that in the winter we can see its people through with warmth as well as food and other requirements. I think I have dealt adequately with the Bonn Statute and the Berlin position.
Now, as to the future. In O.E.E.C. we took the only steps open to us to associate the bizone with the Marshall Aid plan. So far as that is concerned, economically they are in the West, and they get Marshall Aid. Until we have established a German government we cannot, of course, say what will happen with regard to the proposed Council of Europe, but some form of association at the earliest possible moment will be worked out. We must in some way


keep Germany associated with the rest of Western Union pending the establishment of a government which is representative. Therefore, we have throughout had in mind the necessity of associating Germans with the West on equal terms as soon as the political situation permitted and in the meantime of making some special arrangement to meet existing circumstances.
The question of the Ruhr and the basic industries of the West has been raised and it is said that what we have done for the Ruhr is wrong. I have yet to learn what is right. We have never said that we would refuse to plan the whole basic industries of Western Union; but I suggest that if we proposed it now, we should meet with a storm of opposition. I should have still more opposition from the other side of the House if the whole of our basic industries were to be put into the pool willy-nilly without any planning, organisation or arrangement. It may come—I think possibly it will—but not by taking one country and passing a resolution. Every bit has to be worked out in minute detail and care and everyone's interests have to be looked after.
I think Western Union has developed with amazing speed. It was only three years ago, long before there were any Hague conferences, that all this was discussed privately behind the scenes. We began by setting up the Anglo-French Committee and the Anglo-Italian Committee. We began by building up the Treaty of Dunkirk, then the Brussels Treaty and now the Pact. Let me dwell a bit on this growth. Every bit has had to be worked out clause by clause in great detail, and what has been done cannot be done by polemics nor by perorations. It must be done clause by clause and bit by bit. Let those who claim credit for it do so; I am not a bit perturbed. I leave it to history. When I am out of office and can write papers or a book, perhaps the firm of the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) may publish it for me—who knows? Let history record the work that has been done in this business and I shall not be ashamed. Who else likes to claim the credit, let them do so, I am not a bit concerned.
On the control of the Ruhr, I would remind the House that we took a rather

different line, the Americans and ourselves, and there was great criticism because it was felt we had not treated the French quite rightly. We immediately reopened the question and made a new arrangement in order to satisfy the claims of France, who naturally had great fears in this matter. I wish to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) and say how much I appreciate his great experience of the Control Commission and how much I appreciate the tribute he paid to Sir Brian Robertson, the Military Governor. He has done a great job and I am sure the House will agree with those remarks. The size of the Control Commission is constantly under review. We are torn between two decisions. On the one hand, we have to hand over to the Germans; on the other, the Germans are not equipped after years of Nazism to take over as efficiently as we should like at the beginning and we must therefore move step by step. I do not want to be caught with too small a staff when the bulk of the work has to be handed over and find inefficiency growing. I ask the House to trust the Government to watch this with very great care.
I have been asked about the giving back of the satellite countries and about East-West trade. We are members of a club, what I call a Western club. And we have not based this entirely on Article 117 to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. We feel we have a moral obligation, and indeed we have our own security to take care of. We have therefore had to impose controls on the export of certain goods of strategic value. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will deal with questions in this connection at the appropriate moment. We have been trying to move together with our friends in Europe, particularly with the Brussels Powers in this respect. I took the opportunity of acquainting them with the decisions of His Majesty's Government here, and I must, of course, give them time to consider them from then particular angle. We are not dependent on agreement with them. I want to assure hon. Members that we shall proceed. But when one is working in conjunction with other Powers it is wise to inform them so that they may decide their course of action.
I do not want to break off East-West trade. I would, however, withhold anything which might be used to promote war against us. The Western Powers are never going to be aggressive. They hold to the spirit of the United Nations when it was established. But if one cannot get people to agree on disarmament and other vital matters, one must take the only course open and agree with those with whom one can agree. There is, however, the question how far can we go in punishing the ordinary folk. That is an anxiety to me. Do we make converts of people in another country, however much they hate their regime, if we join in starving them? I do not think we do. That is why I welcome the rather pronounced view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden when he put this point. I would call attention to it, because it seemed clearer to me than the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The right hon. Gentleman was not here.

Mr. Bevin: But I heard the summary at the end. I do not wish to cause another split in the Opposition. I am expressing only my own view. In any case we are going on trading. In the trading which we are doing we are not sending capital goods, so far as I know, which have a war potential, excepting in so far as there are some goods which cannot help being war potentials. A ship is a war potential, but are we to deny them ships? Someone said we cannot do that. There are many things which are war potentials, but there are certain things one must have if one is to wage a war—aircraft, and all sorts of things—

Mr. Macmillan: Jet engines.

Mr. Bevin: Yes, jet engines; I can give an answer to that, but that has been remedied now and I will not go into it at the moment.

Mr. Macmillan: At last, at last.

Mr. Bevin: The engines were on the free list which was drawn up before my time, not long after the end of the war. It was not tightened up as much as it ought to have been, but that has been put right. Therefore, in the main I have met requests put to me by the right hon. Gentleman in this particular case.
In the last few moments I will turn to the question of the Treaties with the Balkan countries.

Mr. R. A. Butler: We have been waiting so long for the answer about these reparations from West to East, all through Czechoslovakia, and the right hon. Gentleman has so often promised us the answer. Perhaps we may have it tonight.

Mr. Bevin: The right hon. Gentleman shall have the promised reparations. I think there are about 2,500 tons to go to Russia in the clearing up of the parcel. The rest have been dealt with by the reciprocal arrangement of which the right hon. Gentleman is aware. Cezchosloslovakia is another story. I am not prepared to say at the moment that it has completely stopped there. After the delivery of this last parcel, the whole matter will be over and done with, particularly after the settlement of the Humphrey business.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: What about Greece?

Mr. Bevin: I shall come to Greece in a moment. That is what I am trying to do. On the Balkan Treaties we take the view that we must try to exercise our rights under the treaties. If we are to be denied, as we have been denied—and it has been a part of the policy of Soviet Russia all through—then I quite agree that the Western countries must reconsider their whole position. With regard to Greece, the main responsibility is in the hands of the United States of America. We did not have the money. We could not carry it on. We shall certainly discuss Greece when I get to the United States.
It has been suggested to us that we have been losing this cold war. Someone said that time was running out, that we had been beaten back and that we had been losing all the way. Let us examine the position. Just over two years ago, when the cold war really began to get hot, it looked as if—and I certainly felt it—Russia would succeed in forcing us back in Germany. It looked as if Italy would be completely disrupted. In France, facing the tremendous strikes and manoeuvres of the Communist party, it looked as if the Government might fall and chaos might ensue. The real purpose behind it all was to drive a wedge between Western Europe and the Western world


and to create a situation where the West could never unite.
In a word, what has happened? Western Germany, with the majority of the population, is saved. I do not believe that they will ever go Communist now. That is my view. They will not stand red tooth and claw capitalism there, but they will stand an ordered democratic Socialism. That, I believe, they will accept. [Interruption.] I am putting the position as I see it. France has got over the disruption. Her economy is well on the way to restoration. Italy has overcome the strikes. She has produced a very firm Government.

Mr. Platts-Mills: With three million unemployed.

Mr. Bevin: That is not her fault.

Mr. Platts-Mills: No, it is the fault of America and the Marshall Plan.

Mr. Bevin: It is not the fault of America or the Marshall Plan. If the Eastern States had been allowed to trade and there had not been the coup in Czechoslovakia, Italy would have been all right today. All the countries in Eastern Europe would not be starving as they are. Italy has been saved and the Pact has been agreed. A new machinery will soon be set up which will produce a unity in the West which I very much doubt many hon. Members dreamed was possible two or three years ago.
Therefore, I go to America, I know, with the good wishes of the House. I shall do my best to pursue this policy of trying to unify the West and attempting to deliver the goods, not merely in the interest of our own country but in the interest of the peace of the world.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Driberg: I would not have risen to detain the House further at this hour had it not been that what some of us regard as the most important aspect of this whole subject only arose almost at the end of the Debate in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) and of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) who preceded him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden referred the House to the Motion stand-

ing on the Order Paper—(Conviction of Cardinal Mindszenty)—in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Lang) and a number of other hon. Members on the question of religous persecution in Eastern Europe. The hon. and gallant Member referred in his speech to the risk of "the end," as he put it, "of Christian civlisation." Again, the other night, on the Motion for the Adjournment, my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) spoke in similar vein, and said that there could be "no doubt that," in what have been called the satellite countries, "there is complete suppression of religious liberty."
It seems to me that these statements are, at the very least, gravely oversimplified, and I feel that it would be wrong if it went out from this House, and if my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary took to America with him, the idea that that over-simplification is typical or represents the whole of Christian opinion in this country or in this House. It is not so. Christians are deeply concerned about this matter, but they are not by any means unanimous about it. Many of them, for instance, in this House, who are members of the Parliamentary Socialist Christian Group, produced last year a pamphlet which enjoyed a very wide circulation in the country and which does approach this problem from a radically different point of view. On this aspect of East-West relations and on Russia, for instance, this pamphlet says:
A British Christian citizen will not consider Russian Soviet citizens as inevitable enemies, but as a group of fellow-men who are, in his view, in error in certain important respects. He will seek to understand the mind of these neighbours and to value all that is best in their policy and practice—some of which is, from a strictly Christian point of view, in advance of anything yet achieved in the West.
I think it would be generally agreed that that is a very different point of view from that expressed by the hon. and gallant Member opposite or by my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington, who is held in deep respect in this House, and who, as a matter of fact, is also a member of the group which sponsored that pamphlet.
I do not, of course, want to accuse of hypocrisy any of the hon. or right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken today, but


some of them seem to me to be quite unconscious of the unreality, or rather the half-truth, of what they are saying when they talk about these deprivations of civil liberties and human rights in one half of the world. I say half-truths because one eye seems to be permanently closed: they seem to be blind in one eye—blind to every infringement of human rights that occurs west of the Iron Curtain. I recommend the study of the parable of the mote and the beam. It really is absurd to suggest that everything imperfect and wicked is in one part of the world, and that all the rest of the world is completely impeccable. If we look at Spain, for instance, which is certainly in the Western World, and is, presumably, part of that Western or Christian civilisation in which the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes sincerely believes—

Sir A. Salter: Sir A. Salterrose—

Mr. Driberg: If I may just finish my sentence, I will then give way—and which a number of hon. Members opposite have pressed the Government to invite into Western Union and into the comity of nations, we find that, even in that country, there is also religious persecution of minorities, not expressed, perhaps, in such violent terms, but, nevertheless, definite persecution. According to the latest and most reliable reports, Protestants in Spain are regarded as second-class citizens compared with Roman Catholics, and they are also imprisoned on trivial charges.

Sir A. Salter: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that infringements of liberty in the West are to infringements of liberty in the East as the proportions of a mote to a beam?

Mr. Driberg: No, I was not trying to make a cheap debating-point, but a serious contribution. It may well be that, in Western countries with a much longer tradition of liberal institutions than they have in the Balkan countries, the infringements of liberty, although the same in principle, are expressed rather less violently. But that does not 'excuse us from the necessity of studying that parable, particularly since we in the West pride ourselves, and rightly, on these long traditions of civil liberty. I hope I make myself understood to the right hon. Gentleman.

Major Beamish: It seems to be implicit in the hon. Gentleman's argument that I approve in some way of General Franco's regime. Let me hasten to assure him that I think it is a perfectly rotten régime, and the sooner it is replaced by a democratic one the better pleased I shall be. I do not agree with the political or religious persecution in Spain, but I would not be prepared, if in a position of authority, to sacrifice British interests in order to satisfy narrow Socialist Party dogma, because of the strategic importance of the Iberian peninsula.

Mr. Driberg: I am sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not approve of religious persecution anywhere, and I did not attribute to him the proposal that Spain under Franco should be brought into the United Nations or Western Union, but that proposal has been made on a number of occasions recently from the benches opposite.
If one looks at South Africa, which is, after all, part of the Commonwealth, one sees the grossest persecution, not on religious, but on racial grounds, which, in my opinion, is almost as bad if not worse. Furthermore, that is a form of persecution or discrimination which does not exist in Eastern Europe or in the Soviet Union at all, so far as one knows. Some time ago a young English-born Anglican clergyman, who is now in this country, was imprisoned for some months in South Africa, not for any black-market currency offences, and not for plotting against the Constitution, but merely for insisting on living among his parishioners, who happened to be coloured. He insisted on going to live in a compound or enclave in which white people were not allowed to reside. He was imprisoned, but there were no great protests in this country or in this House, no marches through the streets about the Rev. Michael Scott. He has now come here to try to speak directly to the Government on behalf of the persecuted African people to whom he has devoted his life.
I need hardly do more than refer in passing to the discrimination which is almost universal in the Southern States of the United States of America, but anybody who has been there—I am sure any hon. Member from either side of the House who has been there, as I have—is bound to find that shocking to the last


degree. It is perfectly true that one can understand the historical causes of it, and one tries to do so, but one also tries to understand the historical causes of the crudities and even savageries which sometimes occur in Eastern Europe, or one ought to try to do so, I suggest. It is so one-sided and such a half-truth to concentrate all the time on one-half of the world and to pretend that the other half is completely blameless. It seems to me at least as gross an affront to the essential dignity and brotherhood of man that a Negro Methodist in Georgia is not allowed to sit in the same church, or in the same congregation, as his white brother Methodist, as that a Hungarian Cardinal should be imprisoned for alleged black-market currency offences and for political offences which would certainly be regarded as treasonable or seditious in this country.

Mr. William Teeling: While most interested in what the hon. Member is saying about other countries, am I to understand that he thinks it is a bad idea that we should protest against what is happening to the Cardinal?

Mr. Driberg: I am suggesting that these protests should be a little less exclusively selective, a little less exclusively directed in the one direction. Also, of course, it is one's duty, so far as one can, to try to find out the merits of the case about which one is protesting, and I must confess that I find it extremely difficult to come to a final conclusion about the case of the Cardinal. It seems to me a tragic case, but I find it extremely difficult, as I think do many Roman Catholics in this country, to come to an absolutely final conclusion about it.
If one had to try to imagine a parallel to it, I suppose it would be almost as though a Bishop of the Established Church in this country were to start intriguing for the restoration of King Edward VIII. That would obviously be far more than mere political opposition to the Government of the day. I suggest that in this country that would technically be seditious. Whether he would be prosecuted or not I do not know; I rather doubt it. We got over those particular difficulties—our constitutional revolutions and so on—three centuries ago. It is fortunate for us that we did. But we must understand that

historical processes do not occur at precisely the same time in history or with precisely the same speed or momentum in every part of the world. There is no reason why they should.
I am not competent, as I say, and I do not believe many hon. Members are really competent, to pronounce on the case of the Cardinal. I sympathise with the feelings of His Holiness the Pope and of Roman Catholics who genuinely and sincerely feel that there is something, as it were, sacrilegious in the mere arrest by any civil Power of a Prince of the Church, but I suggest that those feelings naturally predispose them to a certain over-subjectivity in judging this case.
I do not honestly think that the argument from news pictures of the cardinal in court is really a very sound one on which to build any conclusion at all. I simply observe that the correspondent of "The Times," who was in court throughout and is not, so far as I know, a Communist, gave a rather different picture of the proceedings from that presented by some of the propagandists; that the author of the "Manchester Guardian" editorials on the subject, presumably not a Communist, also took rather a different view; and that so eminent a Free Church cleric as Dr. Nathiel Micklem, who certainly cannot be suspected of being a Communist or under communist influence, also found it necessary to suspend judgment and to regard the campaign by the Cardinal's friends with some scepticism. I observe particularly that the "Osservatore Romano," the official organ of the Vatican, commented on the case in these curious and significant words:
The Cardinal followed the path of honour and justice. He admitted what was true, and he denied what was false.
However, I, personally, have a perhaps unreasonable prejudice, in view of the practice of many Members of this House, against forming a judgment on countries which I have not visited myself, at least for long enough to get some first-hand impressions; and, rather than discuss the case of the Cardinal any further—because I have never visited Hungary—I would just say a word or two, if I may, about what hon. Members opposite will probably regard as a reasonably analogous case, that of Archbishop Stepinac of Yugoslavia, who is still in prison. When I was in Yugoslavia about 18 months ago


I went out of my way to investigate that case as thoroughly as I could, by discussing it fully with many well-informed people of every possible point of view, including Communist Ministers in the Government, Roman Catholic prelates, British diplomats and others, and after a number of those discussions I formed the view that, on the whole—for reasons which we should regard as wrong, that is, because he maintained a political opposition to the Tito régime, and by judicial processes which would perhaps seem to us, maybe in our insular self-satisfaction, somewhat imperfect—rough justice was done, since Mgr. Stepinac was guilty of extremely flagrant collaboration with the enemy during the war. That, at any rate, I have reason to believe, is the view which the British Embassy in Belgrade took after the matter had been pretty thoroughly gone into.
I do not agree with those Communists who say that the Vatican is committed to a policy of stirring up or organising a "holy war" against Communism. I was interested to notice only a few weeks ago an indignant denial of these allegations in the "Osservatore Romano," which denounces and deplores the suggestion made by Communists that the Vatican is interested in promoting a holy war. Yet, if the analysis given us, over-simply, by hon. Members of this House is correct, the Vatican ought to be doing just that but I do not believe that it is—

Mr. Speaker: I would remind the hon. Gentleman that the House is not concerned with what the Vatican ought or ought not to do, but what the Government ought to do. The hon. Gentleman must direct his remarks to the responsibility of the Government, and to no one else.

Mr. Driberg: With great respect, I will endeavour to do so, Sir, but I suggest that the Debate has gone very wide at various times, and that we have been discussing the subject of religious persecution in various countries of Eastern Europe. It is rather like "Hamlet" without the Prince of Denmark to discuss the religious situation in Europe and omit the Vatican. However, I will make this part of my speech as brief as I can, and merely make these two points: first, the Pope has been, in recent years, badly

advised and informed from at least one country in Eastern Europe—factually, I mean.
Secondly, when I think of the Vatican policy in general, I am always reminded of that perfect example of empiricism given us towards the end of the war by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Leader of the Opposition, when he said: "We will co-operate with kings or with commissars so long as they are killing Germans." Broadly, the Vatican will co-operate with kings or with commissars so long as they get freedom of religious worship for their priests and of education. The Vatican will make concordats with régimes of any political colour. That is one great reason why I resist all the time this dangerous talk of a holy war, a cold war, or any irrevocable division or clash between East and West.
Furthermore, when hon. Friends of mine talk, as they talk in this Motion on the Order Paper, and in Debates like that initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington, of a complete blackout of religion in Eastern Europe, they are being, if I may say so with respect, a little presumptuous in, as it were, unchurching completely the great Orthodox churches of Eastern Europe. It is all very well for people to sneer at those churches and say that they are simply stooge churches, puppets of the State, and have always been so since the time of the Emperor Constantine. I do not think that gibes like that come very well from those of us who, like myself, are members of the Established Church of England. The Orthodox churches at least have the liberty, to a considerable extent, to appoint their own bishops and to order the details of their own liturgy without interference from secular parliaments, which we have not in this country.
Incidentally, when one examines the case of the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus and considers his position vis à vis the British Government, it is really like a through-the-looking-glass parallel to the case of the Hungarian Cardinal vis àvis the Hungarian Government, although it is true, so far as I know, unless he has been arrested in the last few hours, that at the moment the Archbishop of Cyprus is at liberty.
I want to conclude by referring to a message appealing for peace which was


issued by the Patriarch of Moscow on the occasion of the recent celebrations of the quincentenary of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is an extremely impressive message. Although I will not read it, because it is lengthy, I should like to read a comment on it which appears in a small but extremely valuable periodical which I think must be known to some hon. Members—the "Christian News-Letter." It cannot be suspected of Communist sympathies. A correspondent writing in the "Christian News-Letter" seems to me to make one of the most profound statements on the whole of the religious situation in Europe that I have yet seen. I hope I may be forgiven if I quote just a few sentences. There have been many long quotations from the other side of the House, too. Referring to this Russian Orthodox appeal to Christians to co-operate in building up peace, this writer says:
The document… is a reminder to Christians in the West that there are Christians in the East: it is also a reminder of the fact that the two immense forces of Russia and the West find themselves face to face not on the Elbe or in Berlin but in the very depth of European mankind. People in the West particularly in America and Britain… have become accustomed to oppose 'Christian civilisation'… and Communist Russia.
That is precisely the antithesis which has been repeatedly presented to us today—in the first instance by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), who referred to "Western and Christian civilisation," and subsequently by other hon. and right hon. Gentleman. The "Christian News-Letter" contributor says:
This is increasingly becoming a convenventional war cry on the lips of those who have little awareness of what is meant by either Christian civilisation or Communist Russia. I am simply not impressed by this hackneyed attitude, which is fit for military purposes, but, by simplifying, confuses the issue. The Russians are, of course, by no means free from a similar attitude… but with them it is largely due to a kind of persecution mania, which, as is well known, easily turns into aggressiveness, whereas in the West"—
and this is a tremendously important point—
it is the result of the sin of pride, of cultural hubris which issues in what Professor Toynbee calls the posture of the civilised lord of creation. It is perhaps a somewhat tragic comment on our predicament today that it is necessary for Western Christians to be reminded that there are Christians in the East.

There is no such thing as Western (Christian) civilisation over against Russian (non-Christian) civilisation, and I for one am conscious of the excellence and the tragedy of belonging to a world torn asunder yet fundamentally one: indeed it is this very unity, this terrifying one-ness, of the historical destiny of European man that makes me embrace and appreciate all our present tensions and conflicts.
I have already read too much from that contribution and I apologise, but it seems to me a profound statement. The writer goes on to emphasise the essentially European character of Russia and Russian Christianity ever since the first days of the "second Rome." I hope that hon. Members who are seriously interested in this most important aspect will get hold of this issue of "Christian News-Letter" for 16th February.
I will end, again apologising to the House for taking up time so late at night, simply by saying that it is in the spirit of the "Christian News-Letter" contribution, and in the spirit of the pamphlet, issued last year, which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, that the possibilities for what might be called a truce at least, if not yet true peace, really begin to take shape. I shall always remember that when I was a boy, only just beginning to learn about Socialism, I went one day into that most beautiful of all English parish churches, at Thaxted, and saw hanging there the Red Flag, which Conrad Noel had hung up. It was then periodically being torn down and torn up by hooligans, the forerunners of the Fascists of today. On that Red Flag were inscribed the words:
He hath made of one blood all nations.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. John McKay: I have been very much surprised by the end of this discussion. I had not intended to speak, and I have not studied for hours and hours in order to be able to make a speech of the kind to which we have just listened. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) has in reality endeavoured in his own way to indicate that this discussion today has been concentrated on developing the viewpoint that the differences of opinion which exist in the world today are dependent upon the attitude of religious bodies to the Soviet Union, and that all our opinions arise from that viewpoint. One would have expected that a man with the reputation of the hon. Member for Maldon would


not have attempted to make the kind of speech to which we have listened without at least giving some idea it was likely to be made. Of course, that might appear a point to be ridiculed by some hon. Members.

Mr. Driberg: I did not intend to do my hon. Friend any discourtesy, but it was quite impossible, and indeed would have been presumptuous, to try to notify everybody who might be interested. I did mention to two hon. Members opposite who are I know Roman Catholics, that I would be touching on this subject.

Mr. McKay: I do not pretend to be a specialist on Catholic theology and I do not intend to attempt to give the Catholic viewpoint. What I want to do is to try to show the real viewpoint in this discussion. What has happened to Cardinal Mindszenty has happened to other Christian leaders. What has concentrated the thought of the world upon this situation is not what has happened to the cardinal, but what has happened to a number of Socialist leaders in Europe—in Spain or in any other place. What has consolidated the thought of Europe and America is the fact that, while we might have various religious viewpoints and prejudices about religion, nevertheless one of the outstanding features of the Western world is that we have the common fundamental viewpoint, both in religion and politics, that the right issue of human activity will be forthcoming only when humanity speaks and acts freely.
This discussion should not be allowed to go forward with the idea that our consolidated viewpoint centres round the one question of religion. It is not centred on that at all. It is centred on the more fundamental question of the freedom of people to express themselves whatever their viewpoint. In future, before any hon. Member comes to speak, with some authority as it were, as a representative of the Christian group of Socialists, the position must be analysed a bit more.

Mr. Driberg: I made no such claim.

Mr. McKay: We must have it made a little clearer whether someone can assume authority in this House to represent the Christian Socialists.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is there no freedom of speech?

Mr. McKay: Yes. I do not think that what I believe is a prejudiced view. I do not believe the viewpoint which we heard from the hon. Member for Maldon expresses the general attitude of the Christian Parliamentary Group. Therefore, I hope that, if we have the time, and if we get the opportunity, the question of the attitude of Governments generally throughout the world, and of the public in particular, to the question of peace and the rights of humanity will be debated at some future time, if necessity arises. I conclude by saying that I hope we shall get more broadminded viewpoints expressed in the future.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Solley: I was not aware that after the speech of the Foreign Secretary we were going to continue this Debate, and to some extent I am not completely equipped to make the detailed statements of fact I would otherwise like to make. Nevertheless, I hope to make a useful contribution to the Debate. Unlike other hon. Members who seem to have firm ideas about the conditions of Eastern Europe, I visited Eastern Europe in 1946, 1947, and 1948, and I can draw comparisons of the progress—because it was progress—which I saw myself and which are not based upon the malicious lies and misrepresenation of Fleet Street in relation to Eastern Europe.
On my last visit to Eastern Europe, in October, one of the gentlemen with whom I dined on my last night in Bulgaria was described by an author, Mr. Michael Padev, in the "Tribune" of that very week, as having been liquidated. Mr. Padev is one of the sources of this lying propaganda which finds its way into the innocent hands of, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) who quoted Mr. Padev's works in his contribution to the Debate last week. In the same way, Mr. Padev inspired an article in the "Economist" at about the same time which contained more factual misrepresentation about Bulgaria than it would be possible to imagine. In my innocence, at that stage I thought that when I wrote a factual and not political letter to the editor of the "Economist"


pointing out the incorrect statements which ought to be corrected, if only in accordance with the standards of journalism in this country, it would be published. But there was no room, apparently, for a short letter from a Member of this House who had just returned from Bulgaria and could state the facts.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Freedom of the Press.

Mr. Solley: Freedom of the Press has become an iron curtain not dividing Eastern and Western Europe, but dividing Europe from this country across Fleet Street. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said something or other to the effect that Eastern Europe was starving. I must say that in 1947, in Roumania, the conditions were by no means deplorable; quite the contrary. There was a very optimistic attitude. In October, 1948, in that country, I found more food available for the ordinary people than there was to be found for the ordinary people of this country. I do not propose to go into an analysis of why that was so, and I make no comment at all about the rationing system here; why I found what I did is a matter on which, also, I make no comment. But, it is quite inaccurate to say that the people of Roumania are starving.
Suggestions have been made also about the lack of freedom in Eastern Europe, and especially about lack of freedom in religion. I should like to say something about religion from an angle different from that which we usually hear. Before the war there was never a democracy in Roumania; the Jewish communities were regarded as subhuman species. A Jew, be he an aristocrat or a worker, was spat upon in the trams and omnibuses, and was generally regarded as a completely non-human creature.
In spite of the attempts of the Government, in an official statement in this House last week, to suggest that the Jewish religion was one of the victimised religions of Roumania, I must say that, from my personal knowledge, no religion was subject to victimisation in that country. Certainly, in the case of the Jews specifically, they have never had such freedom in their entire history in Eastern Europe as they enjoy at the present time in Roumania. This is surely a

tribute to the liberal outlook of the Roumanian Government. In Bucharest last October there was established the State Yiddish Theatre. For anyone to suggest that there is evidence of persecution of religion so far as the Jews are concerned is transparently false and ridiculous, if one remembers that one fact alone.
I will tell the House of some of my personal experiences in Bulgaria last year. I met the leaders of the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria; I did not meet the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, or any other, apart from the Muslim and Jewish leaders. On all sides I found that they had no complaint whatever against the Government. So far as the Orthodox Church was concerned, the priests were solidly behind the Government. I emphasise that I am stating facts—not misrepresentations and propaganda. The priests of the Orthodox Church are entirely with the Government. I went to one of the places near Sofia where three or four hundred priests were voluntarily giving their time, with peasants and workers, to build some sort of roadway, and it seems to me it would be an extraordinary thing for the priests to do that, unless they really believed they were assisting their country by voluntary work with the peasants.
I ask myself, What is the reason for this misrepresentation? What is the reason for these lies? The answer is very obvious if one has listened to the speeches made by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite today. It is to create a war hysteria and to create fuel which will ultimately stoke the fires of war. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite realise that they cannot go to an English worker, or any ordinary Englishman in cold blood and say, "We want you to start a war against Eastern Europe." Nor can they say, "We want you to go to war against Eastern Europe." What they can, and do, say is, "You realise there is no freedom of worship in Eastern Europe; you realise that the people are starving in Eastern Europe, and you must realise that these conditions will come to this country one day unless we go to war. Therefore, you must go to war while there is a chance of winning it."
That is the reason behind this propaganda. I have been to Eastern Europe


and I am not prepared to agree with everything that is done there. On the contrary, I have my criticisms, but one thing I am certain about is that I can see no reason whatever either for war preparations or for going to war. May I give one small illustration of life behind this so-called Iron Curtain?—and with this I shall complete my speech. One night I returned unexpectedly to my hotel in Bucharest. I should like right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to know that I paid for my own hotel expenses and that I paid for my own journey there and back. I was glad to accept, and am always glad to accept, hospitality.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Mayhew): Has the hon. Gentleman any interest to declare in this?

Mr. Platts-Mills: Yes, the interests of peace.

Mr. Solley: Yes, I have an interest in establishing a different objective from that of some of the visitors who go there under Government auspices. However, as I was saying, I returned to my hotel—

Mr. Mayhew: What is the hon. Gentleman's interest?

Mr. Solley: I have no interest except to see that the truth is reported. When I returned to my hotel, the Athenée Palace Hotel in Bucharest, I found that there was a banquet taking place—a banquet behind the Iron Curtain. I made inquiries and discovered that it was being held by the Bucharest branch of the Waiters' Trade Union. They were celebrating the second Confederation of the Union of Food Industries. I was invited to participate, which I did very gladly. Whatever criticism I, as an Englishman, might have of the lack of some of the democratic features, which by virtue of our historical tradition I had become accustomed to and had come to value, here were waiters dining at the Claridge's of the Balkans. It seems to me that while this may disagree with the ideas of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, the incident which I have described is symbolic of the revolutionary changes which are taking place in Eastern Europe. It is certainly no reason why we should

go to war against the workers of Roumania or the workers of Europe generally.
I should like to conclude by making a short reference to Greece, which has been mentioned in this Debate. I was in Greece on May Day, 1946, immediately after the forced general election. At that time there was no guerrilla movement. On the contrary, there was a façade of democracy, and beneath this façade Liberals, including Liberal senators, Social Democrats, Communists and trade unionists, were being assaulted, beaten up, murdered, and falsely imprisoned. To my astonishment they were saying, "We do not want to answer back, because that will mean civil war." They told me that they still had hopes that this dreadful situation could be saved by peaceful means. Now we are told, and rightly, that Greece is the subject of intervention. Of course, it is—intervention by the United States of America, and, unfortunately, to our great regret on this side of the House, active intervention at some stage by our own country. If there is a liberation, a resistance, a guerrilla movement in Greece today, it is a direct consequence of the Fascist Government which Greece has not changed. If that is the sort of Government which the Opposition would like to have, if they would like to turn all Europe into a huge Greece, that is another reason why I would oppose that particular policy.

Mr. Vane: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that shortly after he and two of his hon. Friends went to Greece under the auspices of Mr. Sophonopoulos and the League for Democracy in Greece—which is closely associated with the Communist Party—and produced a pamphlet which nobody can describe as very factual, that an all-party delegation went from this House and reached very different conclusions? I, as one Member of that delegation, can remember that time and time again we met people who were not themselves neo-Fascists, who told us that they hoped we would take a little more trouble than the three Members who preceded us to try to find out what had happened.

Mr. Solley: Of course, it is classical political history that a report produced by Fascists is a Fascist report, that a


report produced by Conservatives is a Conservative report, and that a report produced by Socialists is a Socialist report. I will admit immediately that I cannot be objective because I am a Socialist, and I do not want to have the sort of objective which hon. Members on the other side of the House seem to admire.

Mr. Vane: Mr. Vanerose—

Mr. Solley: The hon. Gentleman must permit me to answer his first intervention before he has a second go. I will admit my prejudice. It is a prejudice against Fascism, and if the hon. Gentleman read that prejudice into my report, I am indeed proud that the report indicated it. I cannot speak for his experiences; I can only speak for myself and my two hon. Friends who went with me. I am quite convinced, from what I saw, that Greece, as I have already described, had a Fascist Government acting under a facade of democracy.

Mr. Vane: The hon. Member seems to think I was referring to a Conservative delegation which produced what he has referred to as a Conservative report. I would point out that the leader of that delegation was the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks), and the report produced certainly did not discover that the Greek Government was a form of Fascist Government. If there was any trace of suspicion of that, I should have thought the hon. Member for Broxtowe would have seen it.

Mr. Warbey: May I be allowed to remind hon. Members that in that all-party report there was a pretty severe condemnation of the administration of justice in Greece and also an admission that persecution of the Left had been greater than persecution of the Right?

Mr. Speaker: I am not quite clear what the hon. Member is talking about. I think the delegation went to Greece in 1946. We are now in 1949. Let us confine ourselves to 1949.

Mr. Solley: What I was saying was that in 1946 there was no guerrilla movement, but active intervention from outside. To suggest today that the guerrilla movement is the result of Soviet or out-

side influence seems to me to be a travesty of the facts.
Whatever views one may have about the nature of the Governments in Eastern Europe—and in many respects one can seriously criticise some of the things they have done—nevertheless, in the last analysis, approaching this problem from the point of view of historical perspective and making allowance for the fact that we cannot expect our particular brand of democracy to be transplanted to the soil of Eastern Europe, which has a completely different historical heritage, and making allowance for the fact that merely because they have attempted to achieve their revolution in a way which may well have been different from that in our particular historical heritage, I say that to call for war in the terms we have heard today from the Opposition is a disgraceful thing in 1949. If they have no better case to make than that we should prepare to go to war because we do not like the waiters of Bucharest sitting down at the Claridge's of Bucharest, then they should find a better policy.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: At this late hour the House has suddenly turned its attention to Christianity. I therefore make no apology for trying to apply the ethics and the principles of Christianity to the foreign policy of this country. I remember that, when the Minister of State began his career as a prospective minister of the Church of Scotland, he obtained a great deal of publicity by taking part in a debate in Glasgow University on the theme "We must not fight." I only wish that the right hon. Gentleman had continued on those lines. I wish that in recent international conferences the Minister of State had applied his early principles of Christianity to international affairs.
I do not see why hon. Members should treat so superciliously the Christian attitude towards war. I want to use this opportunity to preach the ethics and the philosophy of one section of the Christian movement, the Society of Friends I believe that if this House had listened to the Quaker point of view on international affairs and had listened during the last 25 years or so to the arguments and the philosophy put forward by the Quakers, we would not have reached the impasse


in international affairs that we have reached today.
I have listened to every speech in this Debate very carefully and I suggest to the House that we should hear more of the note that was introduced into the Debate by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg). People say that Christianity has failed. I remember reading in Bernard Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion" that it was not Christianity that had failed, because Christianity had never been tried. I want to see this House of Commons, which opens its proceedings with Christian prayers every day, apply the principles of the Sermon on the Mount to our international affairs. When we do that, we will begin to find the way out of the dilemma that faces us.
This afternoon we listened to speech after speech telling us that our foreign policy for the last 25 years had solved nothing. For six years we fought the Germans, and all the arguments this afternoon have been to the effect that, after we have destroyed the Germans and have brought in the non-Christian Russians to help us in that task, we have now got to rebuild Germany—so that the whole policy we have followed during the past ten years has been somehow wrong.
Let us see where our present policy is leading us. There is the Atlantic Pact. The argument of the Foreign Secretary is that this Pact will lead us into the paths of peace. His argument, and that of hon. Members on the Opposition side, is that the more we build up our arms the more likely is it to make Russia afraid of us. I challenge completely the theory of the remark that the more we prepare for war the more likely are we to get peace. The whole of the history of the last 50 years has shown that to be a complete fallacy. We are going the same old road again. We are preparing for war, and I regret very much to say that we are doing so under the aegis of a Socialist Government.

Mr. McKinlay: That is not true.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: If the hon. Member had been here during the last week or so, he would have known that we were preparing for—

Mr. McKinlay: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for the hon. Member to accuse an hon. Member of being

absent for the last week when, in fact, he has not been absent since the Session began?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: As a matter of fact, I made no reflection on the hon. Member, because I did not know from whom the interruption came. I did not recognise it was from my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay). If hon. Members had paid attention to the Debates we have been having during the last few weeks, they would realise that we are spending £750 million on preparation for war, and that this year we budgeted for £105 million more for war than we did last year. If that is the policy which is to be followed, we shall be faced year after year with a steady increase in our budget for arms, and this armaments race will end in the impoverishment of the great majority of the people of this country, while our economy is going to be devoted to the production of armaments instead of the production of consumption goods.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday there was a meeting in Paris attended by the various Foreign Ministers and the Finance Ministers. I have read in the columns of a very influential and usually reliable Scottish newspaper that at this conference the United States Government presented this proposition, that Great Britain must agree not only to spend this amount, but must be prepared to step up her bill for armaments. I noticed with a great deal of interest that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on behalf of Great Britain, protested very vigorously against this new proposition from the Government of the United States. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to continue to protest. I hope that face to face with the economic impasse that confronts us and with the steady increase of the burden of armaments that is to be placed on the shoulders of the working classes of this country, he, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Labour Government, will take up the same attitude towards increased expenditure on armaments as Lord Randolph Churchill did many years ago.
What is to be our attitude to the Soviet Union? We have heard the term "fellow traveller" bandied about this afternoon. I do not know precisely what


a fellow traveller is. I am not a Communist; I have never been a Communist, and I repudiate completely the philosophy and ideology of the Communist Party inasmuch as it means the dictatorship of violence and the dictatorship of the proletariat. I do not accept that at all, but we must try to understand how the Soviet Union came to have this philosophy and its totalitarian point of view.
I heard the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs over the wireless last Friday talking about the peace-loving nations, and he seemed to assume that the peace-loving nations were merely the nations that were going to be combined in the Atlantic Pact. I believe that the Russian people are just as much peace-loving as we are, and if we are going to adopt the humanitarian attitude we are adopting to the people of Berlin—and it has been stressed in this Debate that the airlift is a great humanitarian gesture—then we have got to carry it a little further. If we are going to act in a humanitarian way to the people of Berlin, and take them food and prevent them from dying of starvation, then I do not see how we can take up a different attitude to the people of Moscow and be prepared to make war on them.
After all, it is not likely that Stalin and his oligarchy are going to be the first to suffer in the event of a war. If atom bombs are to be dropped on Russia, they will be dropped on the civilian population. They will be dropped presumably on Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, and the oilfields of the Caucasus. So we are going to inflict misery on hundreds of thousands of innocent people who are not the cause of the war at all.
What happened in Japan? In the current number of the newspaper "Time" will be found an article on the effect of the atom bomb on Nagasaki. We are told that over 25,000 people were killed and 91,000 were injured. I presume that is the kind of war that will be carried out under the auspices of Britain and America if war unfortunately comes, and I suggest to the House that if we are prepared to be humanitarian to the people we fought for six years, if we are prepared to say to the people of Berlin that we are now prepared to treat them as decent human beings, we should take

precisely that attitude to the people on whose side we fought, and who were our allies for four years.
I cannot understand any hon. Member arguing that this is to be a war of Marxism against Christianity, and that we are on the side of Christianity. I cannot reconcile Christianity and the atomic bomb. It is impossible to do so. In various Debates hon. Members have talked about their humanitarian feelings. They have talked about analgesia in childbirth, and relieving the suffering of women in childbirth; but at the same time they are prepared to drop atomic bombs on cities containing maternity hospitals.
The determination to keep out of war altogether should be made the keystone of foreign policy. I do not believe that a war against Communism will suppress totalitarian Communism. That only developed in the Soviet Union as a result of the stress and strain of war. It was the Russians who first decided on peace in the First World War. It was the Russion soldiers who came home from the trenches to Leningrad and Moscow and made the revolution—not any Bolshevik organisation. The Russian people are as peace-loving as we are, and I suggest that we are going entirely the wrong way if we frame our foreign policy on the assumption that we are going to organise our resources to carry on a war against the Soviet Union.
I have seen the people of the Soviet Union, and I have seen the people of the United States. I have talked to both. I disagree with the Governments of both countries. But I believe there is a sincere feeling in America and in Russia, and in the Eastern countries of Europe, against the possibility of another war. So I end as I began, by saying that if we apply the ethics of Christianity and the Sermon on the Mount to international affairs, we shall begin to find a way out. I believe that the Society of Friends, who have repudiated violence, have shown us the way. In our foreign policy we should turn towards the real ethics of Christianity, and abandon the old theory of violence in international affairs.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING [MONEY]

Resolution reported:

"That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the Housing Act, 1936, and to promote the improvement of housing accommodation by authorising the making of contributions out of the Exchequer and of grants by local authorities (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'), it is expedient to authorise—

A. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Health (hereinafter referred to as 'the Minister') in reimbursing to a local authority not more than one half of any loss sustained by them under a guarantee given by them for the repayment of advances made to its members by a society incorporated under the Building Societies Acts, 1874 to 1939, or the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts, 1893 to 1928, for the building or acquisition of houses or flats, being a guarantee as to which the Minister is satisfied that the liability of the local authority thereunder cannot be greater than two-thirds of the principal of, and interest on, the amount by which the sum to be advanced by the society exceeds the sum which would normally be advanced by it without the guarantee;
B. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister in—

(1) making to a local authority or to a corporation established by an order under Section two of the New Towns Act. 1946 (hereinafter referred to as a development corporation'), towards the annual loss determined by the Minister to be likely to be incurred by them as a result of giving effect to proposals approved by him for the provision of dwellings by means of the conversion of houses or other buildings or the improvement of dwellings, an annual contribution for twenty years of an amount equal to three-quarters of that loss;
(2) making to a local authority, towards the expense incurred by them in making to a person other than a local authority a grant in respect of expenses incurred by him for the purposes of the execution of works for the provision of dwellings by means of the conversion of houses or other buildings or the improvement of dwellings, an annual contribution for twenty years of an amount equal to three-quarters of the annual loan charges referable to the amount of the grant;
(3) making to a local authority, in respect of arrangements made by them with a housing association or development corporation for the provision of dwellings by means of the conversion of houses or other buildings or the improvement of dwellings, an annual contribution for twenty years of an amount equal to three-quarters of the annual loss determined by the local authority, with the approval of the Minister, to be likely to be incurred by the associa-

tion or corporation in carrying out the arrangements;

C. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums which, under the Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1946 (hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1946'), are payable out of moneys so provided, being an increase attributable to—

(1) any provisions of the Act providing that where.

(a) a flat approved for the purposes of the Act of 1946 by the Minister on or after the twenty-eighth day of February, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, is provided in a block of flats on a site the cost of which as developed exceeds one thousand five hundred pounds per acre: and
(b) the number of flats contained in the block and in any other block of flats on the site, in relation to the area of the site, falls short of a rate of thirty to the acre;

the standard amount of the annual exchequer contribution for the flat for the purposes of the Act of 1946 shall, instead of being an amount determined in accordance with section four of that Act, be the amount which it would be determined under that section to be if the cost of the site were an amount bearing to the cost thereof as developed the same proportion that thirty-five bears to the rate to the acre of the number of flats mentioned in head (b) of this sub-paragraph in relation to the site;
(2) any provisions of the Act providing that, where a house approved for the purposes of the Act of 1946 by the Minister on or after the twenty-eighth day of February. nineteen hundred and forty-nine, is provided on a site the cost of which as developed exceeds three thousand pounds per acre, the standard amount of the annual exchequer contribution for the house for the purposes of that Act shall be the standard amount of the annual exchequer contribution for the house as ascertained in accordance with the provisions of that Act plus one pound and four shillings for each thousand pounds or part of a thousand pounds by which the cost of the site as developed exceeds three thousand pounds per acre, any amount of the excess over ten thousand pounds being disregarded except where the house is provided under a scheme of development which makes provision also for the erection of one or more blocks of flats on the site.
(3) any provisions of the Act providing that, where the Minister is satisfied that the cost of providing a house or flat has been or will be substantially enhanced by expenses attributable to measures taken in the construction of the house or flat in order to preserve the character of the surroundings, the standard amount of the annual exchequer contribution for the house or flat for the purposes of the Act of 1946 shall be the standard amount of the annual exchequer -contribution for the house or flat,


as ascertained in accordance with that Act and the provisions referred to in the two last foregoing sub-paragraphs plus such sum not exceeding five pounds as the Minister may determine;

D. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister in making—

(1) to a local authority or development corporation, in respect of a new building provided, or a building converted, by them for use as a hostel (as defined by the Act); or,
(2) to a local authority, in respect of a new building provided, or a building converted, by a housing association or development corporation for such use, being a building provided or converted under arrangements made by the local authority under Section ninety-four of the Housing Act, 1936;

an annual contribution for such number of years, not exceeding sixty, and of such amount, not exceeding the sum produced by multiplying five pounds by the number of bedrooms contained in the building, as the Minister may determine;
E. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister in making a grant to a local authority or development corporation in respect of—

(1) the construction of a house or flat by an experimental method, the use for the purposes of experiment of any materials in the construction of a house or flat or the installation in a house or flat, in the course of the construction thereof, of equipment or fittings for those purposes; or
(2) the incorporation or installation in a house or flat, otherwise than in the course of the construction thereof, of materials, equipment or fittings for those purposes:

F. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Minister attributable to any provisions of the Act empowering him to make contributions in respect of houses and flats which become vested in local authorities and of buildings provided or converted for use as hostels (as defined by the Act) which becomes so vested;
G. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(1) any increase in the sums payable under Section one hundred and seventy-three of the Housing Act, 1936, or Part I of the Local Government Act, 1948, out of moneys so provided which is attributable to the passing of the Act; and
(2) any increase in the sums payable under Section ninety-four of the Housing Act, 1936, or under the Act of 1946 out of moneys so provided which is attributable to the removal from the Housing Act, 1936, of references to the working classes; and

H. the payment into the Exchequer of all sums received by the Minister under the Act."

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — GAS (SPECIAL ORDERS)

Resolved:
That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Bolton, which was presented on 15th February and published, be approved."—[Mr. Robens.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under the Gas Undertakings Acts 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Tottenham and District Gas Company, which was presented on 15th February and published, be approved."—[Mr. Robens.]

11.14 p.m.

Colonel Clarke: When this order was first presented, I read it through, as I do a number of these orders, and it appeared to be perfectly reasonable. Since then, I understand that corrections have been made, and I am surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary has not referred to them. I understand that in paragraph 2, line 20, there is an alteration of the date 1948 to 1949, and that in lines 35 and 36 there are more alterations. I am not suggesting that in themselves these alterations are of great importance. They appear to have been drafting mistakes. What is important is to know why these mistakes occurred, because there is a considerable difference between an order of this kind and a Bill. An order can be accepted only as a whole. It cannot be amended and drafting Amendments cannot be moved. An order is a document that ought to be drafted with greater care than a Bill. The mistakes appear to have been due to carelessness, and I want to know why they happened. Who reads.the orders through before they are presented to the House to see that errors of this kind do not occur? On the last occasion on which the Parliamentary Secretary presented an order, he prefaced his remarks by apologising for errors in the printing of that order—it was the order for compensation to electricity employees.
I think it is most regrettable that these orders cannot be looked through and brought to this House in a correct form. It gives one the impression that there may be other mistakes. I know these orders deal with specialist and technical matters and that mistakes tend to creep


in. Who reads them over? Are they left to subordinate officers or are they submitted to some comparatively senior official? Why do these mistakes occur? Are they due to inefficiency or to overwork on the part of the staff of the Ministry? Personally, I believe it to be due to the latter. I believe that with this mass of undigested legislation being passed through the House, the Government have overworked their staff. I know the Parliamentary Secretary cannot speak without the leave of the House, but I hope he will ask that permission in order to make some explanation of why a succession of orders of this kind is presented to the House in an incomplete and incorrect form, with need of alteration before being submitted.

11.17 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Robens): The hon. and gallant Gentleman is usually very amiable and I am sorry that he should have taken me to task so much tonight because I did not draw attention to some alleged errors. I did not draw attention to these matters because I do not see any errors in the drafting. It is true that, in moving another order, I drew attention, not to errors in drafting, but to small technical errors easily corrected in the final print. I admit that in line 20, 1949 might be tidier than 1948, but it is really of no consequence. There is no difficulty at all. The order clearly says:
The following enactments so far as the same are applicable to the purposes and are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Tottenham and District Gas Acts and Orders 1859 to 1948 are hereby incorporated with this Order.
If we had said 1949, it would merely have included anything that had happened in 1949. But nothing has happened in 1949 by way of orders.

Colonel Clarke: How are we to know that anything has happened in 1949 or not? The Minister may know, the Tottenham Gas Company may know, but how are we in this House to know? It is absurd to say that 1948 is as good as 1949.

Mr. Robens: The hon. and gallant Gentleman did not make out any case for 1949. I merely said it would have been a little tidier. It does not matter, because nothing has happened. There

have been no orders and no legislation on this matter. We have all been in the House and know that no legislation of this character has been enacted. Therefore, it does not really matter. When the order was before another place, nothing was said about this. If it had been brought up, I would have drawn attention to it here.
In regard to line 35 of paragraph 2, it may well be that the reference to 10 & 11 Vict. c. 15 and 34 & 35 Vict. c. 41 may have been left out because they were superfluous, as they are printed in the footnote beneath; but to print them twice in the order does not make it any more effective. I would say that there is nothing in the point. I am sorry if the hon. and gallant Member has been misled, but there really is not anything in the point which he has made. There is nothing wrong in the drafting. It might have been tidier if these two points had been dealt with, but as the matter has been dealt with in another place, there is no point in going through the machinery again, which would mean going back through the procedure of orders for this purpose.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to he made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Tottenham and District Gas Company, which was presented on 15th February and published, be approved.

Orders of the Day — HOSIERY YARNS (EXPORT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Bowden.]

11.24 p.m.

Mr. Spence: At Question time on 10th March I put a Question about the amount of yarn being exported from this country, which was answered by the President of the Board of Trade. On that occasion, in the course of answering a supplementary to my Question, the President of the Board of Trade said that he would by glad if I would bring my suggestions to him and discuss the matter; but because the points which I have in mind are of wide interest and affect the whole hosiery trade of our country, and are


not connected with any isolated or single instance, I applied for this adjournment, which I was lucky enough to get.
The particular point on which I want to focus the Minister's attention tonight is the fact that the hosiery industry, in which I am personally interested, has over the last 12 months increasingly found supplies of raw material becoming shorter and shorter. I recall that on 19th April last year, we had a Debate on the question of our export targets. In that Debate I called the attention of the House to a statement which had been made by the President of the Board of Trade to the effect that he was going to export yarn from this country because there had been a fall in the demand from abroad for the finished product in textiles. At that time, I warned the House of the dangerous consequences which might result from following such a policy.
It is my view that this policy of exporting yarns, which are the raw material of the hosiery trade, is the cause of the shortage of supplies today The hosiery industry employs 90,000 people. It makes a substantial contribution to the export field. Its raw material is spun yarn, either wool or cotton, and it is usually in the folded form. To get full production from our industry adequate supplies are essential. It is common experience today to find that deliveries from the time of ordering may take anything from five to seven months, whereas, 12 months ago deliveries took from three to four months. This is extremely serious, because it delays production. But in addition to this delay there is definite shortage of supplies because our allocations from the Director of Civilian Hosiery are being kept to a minimum. They are still based on a four-monthly period, which is not only inconvenient but I claim inefficient. I have in my file a letter from the Director of Civilian Hosiery on a point which I raised with him. He said:
It is becoming more evident that yarn, owing to the acute shortage, must be directed to those making the greatest contribution to export, particularly to hard currency areas.
I have no quarrel with that, if it be necessary; but three-and-a-half years on the road to recovery in the industrial sphere should not find us with these shortages. The figures which I can quote

prove that a lot of yarn is going out of the country today. Total exports of yarn for 1947 were £4,500,000, but for 1948 they were £8 million. If I may quote monthly figures, they show that for January, 1948, they were £500,000 the monthly figure for January, 1949, is over £1 million. I suggest that we are following that policy too far.
I recall very well the reply of the President on the occasion of the Debate last April, when he said that he entirely agreed that it would be false economy to export these things if it means denying essential raw materials to our own manufacturers, and he went on to say that he would certainly keep this question closely under review. It is for such a review that I make my appeal tonight, because I believe that we have pursued this policy of exporting this very essential raw material for one of our essential industries too far.
Our export policy in spinning machinery is another matter. Spinning machinery is largely built in this country and all the ancillary parts which go to the production of yarns are also made here, for the most part. I have examined the figures of our exports of this machinery, and I find that, whereas in 1946 we exported £14,500,000 worth, in 1948, we exported £36,500,000 worth. I am not competent to deal with the techicalities of the spinning machinery business, and must leave that to the Parliamentary Secretary, but what I do know is that here is a tremendous rise in the export of this machinery and the ancillary parts which are required. I get impressions from my own contacts in this trade and from talking to those who supply me with raw materials; and when I challenge a certain supplier for being late with his deliveries, he says "We are so busy with exports." I am sincerely convinced that we have reached the point where the export of this yarn on an increasing scale is going to recoil on our own national economy.
Another harmful effect to the industry is that if we send abroad the raw material, in the form of yarn, which we require here, we are supplying to producers abroad who have more or less the same machinery for the production of the finished article. Knitting machinery is more or less internationally standardised, and by sending this abroad, we enable our competitiors to produce characteristic goods of the same type as we can pro-


duce ourselves, and this in itself tends to close foreign markets to our goods.
I appeal to the Minister to make a review of this situation. I ask him to consider whether, when we are exporting raw materials vital to us and when he is pursuing his present policy, he is not in actual fact being penny wise and pound foolish.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Sidney Shephard: My hon. Friend the Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. Spence) has put forward a very reasonable argument, and I agree with every word of it. I should like to reinforce what he said. Like him, I have a vested interest in the industry, but I hope the Minister will appreciate that we are not speaking for ourselves but for the industry as a whole. My hon. Friend mentioned a figure of approximately 90,000 people being employed in this industry. I should like to point out that 126,000 people were employed in the industry before the war, and that if the industry is ever to regain its prewar labour force and its pre-war output, it must have a greater supply of raw materials. It is not entirely a labour shortage which is causing the industry not to produce as much as it did before the war. It cannot produce as much simply because the raw materials are not available.
My. hon. Friend devoted most of his argument to the shortage of woollen and worsted yarns, but of course cotton yarns are greatly used in this industry, particularly for making underwear. I was interested to notice that a few days ago a prospectus for a share issue to the public by a well-known and large firm in this industry was published. Under the heading "Prospects" I read the following:
The progress towards full recovery to the pre-war level of production is restricted by the limited supply of raw materials, as a result of which the plants are at present operating at 75 per cent. of capacity. The demand for the company's products in the home and foreign markets is in excess of the present output, and would enable the plants to operate at full capacity if relaxation of controls and increased supplies of raw materials permitted.
That situation does not apply only to that firm; it applies to every firm in the industry, and we want the Minister to look into this matter and particularly the question about the allocation of exports

and home market requirements. This industry has been set an export target of £18 million this year and it will do its best to achieve it. The Minister will agree that the export trade must be based on a flourishing home trade, and if the industry is only working to 75 per cent. of capacity it is not in a position to compete as well as it ought to do in export markets. One point which my hon. Friend did not mention is the fact that during the past three years production both of woollen worsted and cotton yarns has been progressively stepped up, but none of the increase has been allocated to the home market. It has all been sent to exports.
There is one other matter which I would like to mention in passing. Yesterday the President of the Board of Trade took off a certain number of controls and a few days ago he lifted controls on the rationing of clothes. That will enable anyone to open a shop to sell clothes and will allow new entrants into the industry. I ask the Minister to consider whether the time has not arrived when new entrants should be allowed into the hosiery industry. This industry has been a closed shop now for eight or nine years, and no man, unless he is an ex-Service man, can get an allocation of yarn. If he is an ex-Service man his allocation is so small that he cannot "make a go" of it. I think it is wrong that we should have this closed shop inside any branch of industry. Surely the Minister will agree that unless one can continually have new blood in industry, we cannot get it up to its proper competitive strength.
The last point I wish to make is in regard to the Development Areas. I should like the Minister to tell me whether, if a person in this particular industry goes to one of these Development Areas, or is willing to go—and this industry is particularly suitable for Development Areas—he will be given sufficient allocation of yarn to enable him to make a success of his undertaking.

11.37 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Edwards): The hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened this Debate suggested that the policy that was being pursued at the present time meant that we were being penny wise and pound foolish. I think


that if we were to follow his advice, we should indeed be working according to that maxim. I want to make it quite plain that we must adhere to the view which my right hon. Friend put forward when he announced the end of textile and clothes rationing, namely, that the export drive in textiles must be pressed on with the utmost vigour and that there can be no question of our being able to afford to increase supplies of yarn for any part of the home trade at the expense of the potential export trade, whether that is in the form of made-up goods or in the form of yarn.
I would, however, like to make one thing abundantly plain—that in so far as the hosiery industry is contributing to the export trade, we would not want any impediment put in its way. Certainly, so far as they need yarn for export purposes, they will not be held up. If any case is brought to my notice where a firm is prevented from doing export business because it is not supplied with yarn, I will do my best to deal with it and to prevent anything like that occurring again.
We do not, of course, make a new beginning in the hosiery or textile industries. We start from where we were. We start with certain traditional markets to which we have customarily exported yarn in the past. Many markets do their own making-up processes themselves, and have looked to us for yarn in the past. A further point is that, apart from the difficulties of abandoning our traditional exports at the present time, when we are doing business with many countries and trying to make agreements, we are not in a position to dictate our terms. In order to get vital things that we need, we have from time to time to make concessions to the countries with whom we are negotiating. That again means that we do get demands for the provision of yarns, and we feel that it is our business to meet those demands.
I was a little puzzled by the argument that there was something inherently wrong in supplying a country with material which it could make up. On that basis America or India would never supply us with raw cotton because it would in the end compete with their own cotton industry. If we tried to run the world on the assumption that countries must never send partially manufactured goods to

another country lest it might interfere with their own home manufacture, we should be in a complete lunatic asylum so far as economic affairs are concerned. There cannot be any question, in any event, of our starting all over again about the export of yarns so long as we are in our present economic difficulties. We must sell abroad what we can. If we could pick and choose, I should be the first to agree with the hon. Member that we ought to balance a little on the other side.
I do not think that the industry is being hard done by. Because of the shortage of worsted yarns, we have had to curtail the exports. In 1947, exports amounted to less than half of what we exported in 1938, which was a poor prewar year. In 1948 we were able to send rather less than 60 per cent. of that figure, and basic allocations for export were still little more than 50 per cent. of the 1938 figure. Extra allocations are only given where it can be clearly shown that the yarn cannot be used by the home weaving or hosiery industries. If one takes it in terms of the proportion which has gone to the trade, I would not myself have thought that there were any real grounds for complaint.
If we take the recent period, the allocation of worsted yarn to the hosiery industry during the curent period March to June is the same as it has been over the last three periods—19 million lbs. I understand that the Wool Controller has in fact, agreed, since the original allocation was made, to an extra issue of a little over a further one million lb. Therefore, it looks to me as though the division of supplies as between the hosiery and weaving trades has not been unfair. The thing that interested me when I looked at the figures for 1939 in comparison with the trade figures for the current year was that during the past year the hosiery industry has received a higher proportion of the available supplies of worsted yarn than it did in 1939.
I know that the industry may not be working up to capacity. I appreciate the difficulties that arise on that account, but since the only way in which we can meet that surplus capacity would be to take yarns away from export and divert them to the home trade, I hope that—while we might progressively work towards an improvement in the sense of the total


production of yarns being increased—and therefore the amount that went to the hosiery trade being increased—both hon. Members who have spoken will feel that the trade is getting a higher proportion of what is available now than it got even in the years before the war. Having regard to our pretty desperate economic situation overseas and our need to export what we can to maintain traditional markets and often to make the right kind of bargains with other countries, I think the industry has not been so badly treated.
I would not tonight wish to deal with the matter of new entrants to the trade. Doubtless that point can be considered when we are considering the whole matter of controls in this field; but so long as yarn is allocated on this basis, one does not want to precipitate even greater trouble for the existing firms by encouraging newcomers. However, in the case of the Development Areas we would encourage in every way open to us any firm that wanted to go there, and if there were export potential we could give considerable assistance. If the hon. Gentleman has a case in mind, I should be very happy to discuss it with him and give such help as we could at the Board of Trade, because we still require firms to go to the Development Areas and we have factories which they can use.
While there may be other detailed points with which I might deal, I content myself by saying, as I did at the beginning, that if allocations to the hosiery

trade are kept to what has been called the minimum—although that is the wrong way of describing it—it is because of over-riding economic considerations. We are anxious that the hosiery trade should export more, and we will do everything we can to help it to attain its targets. We always help and encourage the firm that is really getting down to the export job against the firm that is not, and under present plans that is inevitable. I hope the hon. Gentleman will feel that we must continue to proceed along those lines.

Mr. Spence: Before the Debate concludes, I hope the hon. Gentleman will answer one question. Is he aware that in actual practice there are not priorities today, other than the supply of what are called rarer fibres, in the supply of yarn for the export trade? When we are dealing with the ordinary worsted yarn, the position is exactly the same for the exporting firm as it is for the firm for the home market, and there is no over-riding priority. Will the hon. Gentleman look into that?

Mr. Edwards: I will certainly look into it. The Controller warned manufacturers recently that there might be a drop for home-producing firms in favour of those firms who cater for the export trade and who are going ahead.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Thirteen Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.